


Darkness Rising

by daydreaming_out_loud



Series: In The Dark [2]
Category: Killing Eve (TV 2018)
Genre: Carolyn is crafty as hell, Dark Eve, Drug Use, Elena and Bear are still here, F/F, Music by Unloved, Post Season 3, Psychological Thriller, and a little more smut, darker Villanelle, knife erotica, post Hello Darkness, there will definitely be blood
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-25
Updated: 2021-02-18
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:21:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 69,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27192349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daydreaming_out_loud/pseuds/daydreaming_out_loud
Summary: Unafraid to tempt fate, Eve and Villanelle wage war on their vengeful enemies while trying to stay one step ahead of their pursuers and their demons.
Relationships: Eve Polastri/Villanelle | Oksana Astankova
Series: In The Dark [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1985116
Comments: 68
Kudos: 89





	1. Something Is Missing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tiring from their time off, Eve and Villanelle find Carolyn ready to start phase two but are caught by surprise with all that it will entail.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like this goes without saying but read Hello Darkness first!
> 
> I’m so excited to be back - I did not expect to be writing another season but here we are thanks to all the encouragement from my amazing readers!
> 
> Songs you will need (in order):  
> Guilty of Love – Unloved  
> Carnival – Unloved  
> Mosaic – Unloved  
> Canopée – Polo & Pan  
> Fascination – Pshycotic Beats feat. Pati Amor  
> No Friend of Mine – Unloved  
> Eyes – Unloved  
> If – Unloved  
> Sombre – Unloved  
> Fail We May Sail We Must – Unloved  
> Sigh – Unloved  
> Xpectations – Unloved  
> [Spotify Playlist: Something Is Missing](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7LbKDJMAZrqachvQqCzEhg)

**THREE MONTHS LATER**  


**NOT**  
**NOT CUBA**  
Villanelle pants heavily, biting her lip as she gazes down at Eve with fiery hazel eyes. She tightens her grip on Eve’s leg digging her nails into her as Eve clutches her, trying her best not to slide off the bathroom counter. She leans awkwardly up against the mirror, legs splayed as she presses a hand into the wall trying to brace herself from falling.

Her shoulders bump into the mirror in an even tempo.

Villanelle has one leg thrown over Eve’s on the counter, balancing on the other as she grinds hard and fast between Eve’s legs, her gold bar necklace jangling around her neck. Eve squeezes her ass making her grin and let out a laugh.

“Oh God,” Eve breathes out, her fingers clawing at Villanelle.

Villanelle smirks as she throws her hips in a smooth rhythm, strands of honey hair falling from her loose bun. Her chest reddens as her body heats up, faster than Eve’s. Eve grunts with each of Villanelle’s thrusts, trying to keep her head from smacking into the mirror.

“Oh, God,” she exhales, her breath quivering.

Villanelle huffs as she moves her hips faster.

“Eve.”

Eve moans, her body tensing and vibrating at the same time.

“Eve, I’m getting close,” Villanelle pants.

She grinds harder between Eve’s legs, her fierce grip leaving marks as her nails dig in, almost breaking skin. Eve reaches up and pulls the collar of Villanelle’s tank down, frantically clutching onto the fabric.

Villanelle lets out a laugh. “You like those?”

“Uh-huh,” escapes Eve’s throat.

She wraps her arm around Villanelle, her muscles aching from holding their position. Villanelle throws her hand up against the mirror as she leans in closer to Eve, her breath warm on Eve’s neck. She bites at her skin.

Eve pants heavily, nuzzling her head against Villanelle’s.

“Oh God,” she sighs. “Faster.”

Villanelle grunts and grabs Eve tighter, moving her hips as fast as she can. Her damp palm slowly inches down the mirror as Eve’s arm slides down the wall little by little.

Eve breathes shallower.

Quicker.

Heavier.

Deeper.

“Yeah,” Villanelle pants, grinding harder as Eve moans and tries to brace herself against the wall but she slides off the counter more and more as Villanelle thrusts her hips faster.

“Vill."

Villanelle sighs into her ear.

“Stop. Stop, stop!” Eve blurts.

“What?” Villanelle huffs, “I’m so-“

Her hand slips down the mirror and out from under her. She smacks her forehead against Eve’s as she slides all the way off the counter. Villanelle catches her, hopping backwards as she strains to try to keep them both from falling to the floor. She flings her leg from around Eve’s and stands between her legs with wild eyes, her forehead throbbing. Eve tries to scoot herself back up on the counter and Villanelle hoists her up, smacking her back into the mirror.

“Oh,” Eve grunts, “God.”

She creases her brow, feeling the spot where Villanelle’s head hit hers. Villanelle sighs heavily, blowing the hair off her face.

“Well." Eve grins and lets out a chuckle. "That was something different.”

Villanelle scrunches her brow in a scowl, unhappy with the way this turned out. Eve laughs, her eyes animated.

“Okay,” she groans and squeezes her shoulders together, “I’m getting down.”

“What? We’re done?”

“Unless you want to get on the counter,” Eve retorts.

Villanelle groans in frustration, throwing her head from side to side. She huffs and releases her grip on Eve’s leg, letting her off the counter. They stare at each other, nerve endings still pulsing and quivering. Villanelle’s eyes find Eve’s scar in the mirror. She runs a finger down it; Eve lets out a shaky breath.

“You’re sure you want to be done?” Villanelle smirks.

Eve leans in closer, her breath warm and wet on Villanelle’s lips. She grazes her fingers up Villanelle’s leg until they find the newer scar on her hip. Villanelle trembles and presses her body against Eve’s sending a shiver through them both. Eve wraps her arms around Villanelle and plants a kiss on her lips.

“Okay," Villanelle whispers, "I’ll get on the counter."

Eve lets out a throaty laugh and leans away.

“No.”

“What, why not?”

“Because I’m starving,” Eve replies, loosening her hold and pulling away with a grin.

“Why are you like this?” Villanelle grumbles.

Eve chuckles as she gets her pants back on. She can’t help but laugh at the sight of Villanelle standing there pouting, tank pulled down and pants around one ankle. She shakes out her curls, checking them in the mirror.

“I know you’re hungry.”

“No. I’m not.” Villanelle scowls at her defiantly.

Eve meets her gaze, unwavering in her decision. Villanelle sighs theatrically, very displeased, groaning as she pulls her pants back on.

“I’ll make it up to you." Eve grins.

Villanelle rolls her eyes as they head for the door.

“That’s what you said last time.”

“And?”

Eve looks over at her with a smug smile and raised brows.

Villanelle doesn’t respond. She makes a face looking forward, deliberately away from Eve.

Eve laughs. “Cover your tits.”

[Guilty of Love – Unloved]

Eve and Villanelle stroll out of the bathroom into the hall of the café. Wide eyes lock onto them making them stop in their tracks.

“Oh God, we might have to go somewhere else,” Eve mumbles.

Villanelle grabs her hand proudly, smiling exaggeratedly at the couple nearby. The woman shoots them an appalled look. Villanelle leads Eve to the front of the restaurant and grins at the server who watches them with big eyes.

“We will take a table out front,” Villanelle asserts.

He stammers, unable to find words. All he can manage is a nod.

“Great.” Villanelle smiles.

“Am I the best you’ve ever had?” Villanelle asks, smirking haughtily and dancing around in her seat.

“My answer to that question is always the same. Yes. You’re the best I’ve ever had, probably the best anyone’s ever had, nothing can even remotely compare to you. Happy?”

Villanelle’s smile falls.

“Not when you say it like that.”

“Oh my God.” Eve shakes her head.

“Let’s just go back to our room," Villanelle says. "I have an idea for something else we can try.” She bounces her eyebrows with a simper.

Eve rolls her eyes. “I can’t remember the last time we ate something at a normal time, not in a hotel room somewhere.”

“If the food is good, why does it matter where you eat it?”

Eve pushes her curls back and hangs her head, staring down in her lap as she tries to find words for her feelings.

Villanelle sighs and rolls her eyes in an entirely overdramatic manner.

“Okay. What are you thinking?”

Eve looks up at Villanelle who watches her with raised brows, waiting for her response.

“I don’t know.” Eve shrugs. “Aren’t you…getting bored?”

“With the sex?”

“No no," Eve replies quickly. "No. That’s not what I meant, at all. The sex,” she chuckles, “is great. It’s-”

“Mind-blowing, I know. I am sensational at many things, Eve.” Villanelle smirks.

Eve tries to stifle a smile, not having much else of a response because she knows it’s true. She looks off at the colorful buildings in their different shades of pastels, feeling the warm sun on her skin. Villanelle watches her through narrowed eyes as she studies her.

Eve meets her gaze. “I don’t know. I just feel…like…”

“Something is missing.”

Eve nods. “Yeah.”

Villanelle runs her middle finger down the blade of the butter knife. Her eyes flicker at Eve sending a small jolt of adrenaline through her. She assesses Villanelle’s expression, trying to access what lies deeper in her eyes but not able to get all the way through.

“I think we have to find Carolyn,” she says, dropping her shoulders and slumping back in her chair.

Villanelle doesn’t respond. She wraps her fingers around the handle of the knife, pressing her thumb into the base of the blade, her fingertips red from her grip. Her dark eyes dart to the side, looking through the window into the restaurant at the woman who appears to be complaining very adamantly to the wait staff. She blows out an angry breath.

“People are always getting in our way, Eve.”

Eve furrows her brow in concern, not wanting to take her gaze off Villanelle. She quickly glances inside making brief eye contact with the waiter through the window. She slides her hand over Villanelle’s and squeezes it, her sapphire ring shimmering in the sun.

“Let’s just get room service.”

Villanelle doesn’t look at Eve. She keeps her untamed eyes locked on the woman inside. Eve squeezes her hand again but she can’t pull her gaze away.

“Come on,” Eve urges.

The waiter makes his way towards the front of the restaurant, the woman trailing after him. Eve wraps her hand around the blade of the knife.

“Villanelle,” she says, her voice direct.

Villanelle’s eyes jump back to Eve as she slowly lets out a long breath, releasing her grip some.

“I know.” Eve strokes her thumbs across Villanelle’s knuckles. “Let’s go.”

They both stand and Eve takes her hand tenderly but firmly, leading her away.

She chuckles. “That never would have worked to kill them anyway.”

“You would be surprised what you can do with a butter knife.”

[Carnival – Unloved]  


**LONDON**  
Carolyn sits across from Irina at a table in a large gathering hall with vaulted ceilings and many windows letting in the afternoon sun. It’s quiet. The smallest amount of noise reverberates around the stone walls and tile floors.

Irina crosses her arms and looks off to the side clearly bored with being here.

They’ve been sitting in silence for the last eleven minutes.

Carolyn sighs impatiently and checks her watch.

“Waiting for someone after an agreed upon time is one of the most senseless wastes of time there is. Something I’ve never tolerated well.”

Irina gives her an exaggerated eye roll.

“I don’t know why you’re even here. I already know what he’s going to tell you.”

Carolyn regards her with a blank and somewhat uninterested expression.

Irina leans on the table, a smug grin forming on her lips. “He’s going to say I’m manipulative and devious, completely lacking in empathy, that I can’t feel remorse because I’m traumatized from killing people and being a hostage of an organized crime group, surrounded by psychopaths.”

“Yes, I’m already aware of that." Carolyn shrugs. "That was the reason why you came here and started working with him in the first place.”

“Then he’ll tell you all of my symptoms are getting worse. That I’ll never be normal because of Hélène and Marion. Do you know what I scored on the psychopathy scale?”

“The Hare Psychopathy Checklist is an outdated and rudimentary assessment. There are a vast number of additional factors to consider when evaluating someone’s state of mind,” Carolyn replies.

“Well, I am a psychopath,” Irina says with a smile, like she’s proud of that title. “And there’s nothing I can do to change it.”

“Everyone scores somewhere on that scale,” Carolyn states simply.

A buzzer sounds and the doors fly open echoing around the space. Martin treads towards their table looking a bit disheveled.

“I’m terribly sorry I’m late," he says. "The good weather always makes everyone a little more active this time of year.” He smooths down the front of his shirt and takes a seat next to Irina at the table. “Irina, how are you?”

“Dead inside.” She smirks.

“Yes, well, you have sessions this afternoon and hopefully will be able to work on that more.”

“Did you know that technically I am a serial killer?”

Carolyn doesn’t react, her eyes remain uncaring as she waits for Irina to finish her theatrics.

Martin scratches his head. “Irina, we’ve talked about your case many times. It’s unique-”

“And can’t be compared to others, especially not in pop culture, yeah I know. But still, three people are dead because of me.” She smiles proudly.

Martin looks to Carolyn somewhat anxiously. She blinks at him, more curious to see how he’ll handle the situation than anything else. He sits up straighter and turns to Irina, looking at her with a serious but sympathetic expression, trying very hard to stay levelheaded.

“You were in extraordinarily difficult circumstances and your behavior is not a reflection of who you are now. It was a matter of survival at the time, and you did very well because you’re sitting here in front of us.” He chuckles and smiles nervously between Irina and Carolyn, hoping some comedic relief might help the situation. Carolyn doesn’t smile, knowing that was entirely the wrong approach.

“I survived,” Irina smirks, “but my mum’s boyfriend didn’t when I ran him over. Or the orderly after I shanked him in the heart. Or Kristóf when I stabbed him in the jugular. With a giant fork.” She lets out a laugh.

Martin scratches his forehead again as he formulates a more appropriate response.

“Maybe it’s best if you met with Dr. Perry now to discuss your feelings about the incidents more. We can’t get into that here.” He glances at Carolyn who remains fully composed.

Irina rolls her eyes. “You just want me to leave so you can start your meeting because you don’t know how to deal with me.”

Carolyn observes Irina with sharp eyes, watching her stand with a self-satisfied grin on her face.

[Mosaic – Unloved]

“You know I’m like Marion, and Villanelle. You should just train me to be an operative for MI6. That would be a better use of time and money than making me do this shit,” Irina says.

“Your mental health is the top priority and it will stay that way,” Carolyn responds calmly.

Irina’s temper shifts.

“ _C’est des conneries_ ,” she spits and storms off towards the doors, throwing one open angrily.

Martin waits for the doors to close fully.

“Well, her mood is particularly defiant today,” he says with a nervous smile.

Carolyn clasps her hands on the table and leans back in her chair.

“What is your team’s professional assessment of her progress to date?” she asks.

“Well she often doesn’t take things seriously, she seems to completely disregard the gravity of her condition, and her attitude towards treatment is really rather flippant.”

“Yes, anyone could see that but you’re a licensed psychiatrist, are you not?”

“What, uh, yes.”

“Then surely you could give me a more clinically descriptive evaluation.”

Martin scrunches his brow and blinks off the slight. “Uh.”

Carolyn continues before he can respond. “Her symptoms improved after her initial stay and for a good time after that but she seems to have digressed in the past month or so which leads me to wonder if there has been some sort of incident or another breakthrough in her psyche?”

“Um, yes.” Martin clears his throat. “Yes, I agree with that observation. We initially started treatment to stabilize her so she could access her emotions, and she’s made considerable progress really it’s just hard to see that when she’s in the state she’s in today.”

Carolyn stares at him waiting for more. He shifts anxiously in his seat.

“Uh, Irina has been through a considerable amount of trauma, and not just from the killings and her time in Paris. There seems to be a long history of it from her past which was likely the driving force behind her deviant behavior.” He rests his arms on the table and looks at Carolyn with solemnity. “The effect of trauma on the brain is very…profound. More so on the developing brain...”

“And?” Carolyn asks impatiently.

“Oh, sorry I couldn’t tell if I was boring you or if you wanted me to continue.”

“Well your explanations have always been rather dull but I’ve grown accustomed to them.”

“Um. Right. Well. Irina’s presentation as a ‘psychopath,’ and I’m saying ‘psychopath’ because that’s not an accurate description of her condition at all. We believe, the other doctors and I, that her more difficult traits developed as a way for her to survive and aren’t because of an antisocial personality disorder.”

“So with further treatment there’s a potential for these traits to resolve themselves?”

“Yes and no. Each time she accesses a memory there’s a risk for further detachment, which is where she is currently. Her defiant attitude is all just a defense mechanism because the memories are simply too painful to bear.”

“I see.”

“It will be a long, ongoing process especially since she is an adolescent but I’m confident that she’ll be able to return to a more normal and stable functioning.”

“Is there anything that can be done to help that process along?” Carolyn asks.

“There is one thing I wanted to bring up with you,” Martin says, not elaborating on it.

Carolyn nods having lost nearly all her patience as her mind drifts off to other seemingly more important matters.

“I think she would benefit from a change in her living situation,” Martin says carefully.

“Moving her back to Broadmoor?”

“No." Martin shakes his head. "No, I’m confident that would only exacerbate her symptoms. I mean I think she would do better living with family. Back in Russia.”

“Oh.”

“I know both of her parents are deceased,” he pauses, “but she has extended family still in Kstovo.”

“Yes. On her father’s side.”

Martin nods. “A strong family support system can typically help in these kinds of cases. Not that you aren’t taking good care of her it’s just that it’s-“

“Different.”

“Yes.”

“I’m not family to her.”

He nods. “Right.”

Carolyn sighs after a moment. “Well, I suppose I’ll start making arrangements then.”

“I’ve already contacted a few qualified psychiatrists in Moscow and Kazan who would be willing to work on her case.”

“Thank you, Martin.”

“We’ll have to consider her safety as well, she’ll still need protection,” he adds.

“I’ll contact the SVR and the FSB. Ensure her entire family is protected.”

“That will have to be in place…indefinitely, I would say.”

Carolyn nods, staring off as she comes up with a plan. Martin analyzes her, trying to be covert. She notices but simply does not care. She turns to him and he quickly leans away, running his hands on his pants trying to act casual.

“Well.” She sighs. "Thank you, Martin. This has been a highly productive meeting.” She briskly gets to her feet.

“Uh there’s one more thing,” he interjects, making her pause.

She gazes down at him, he up at her.

“Marion,” he says reluctantly.

Carolyn wavers in her stance by a fraction.

“What about her?”

“Irina still mentions her quite frequently and obviously formed some sort of bond with her. It’s unfortunate really but I’m afraid Irina is…emotionally attached to her.”

Carolyn nods and releases a long, heavy sigh.

“Thank you, I’ll bear that in mind.”

\-------- [Canopée – Polo & Pan]

**CONSTANȚA, ROMANIA**  
Marion slinks into a dimly lit club, the bass from the loud music reverberating through her body. She glides past a wide variety of people dressed in chic attire. A few sets of eyes look her up and down as she strides towards the bar. She wears a sheer tank and a leather biker jacket, naturally both by Valentino, along with jeans and Louboutin boots. All in black. Her dark hair is down with long bangs parted in the middle sweeping to either side.

The lights hanging over the bar counter reflect off the dark glossy wood. A man with deep brown eyes meets her gaze for an instant then looks away. She skims her fingers across his shoulders as she glides past, smiling to herself, feeling his stare on her back. He tosses back the rest of his drink and follows her towards the dark hallway at the end of the club.

He hurries after her, weaving around people chatting at tables and others dancing as he makes his way across the club.

Marion cuts to the front of the line for the bathroom and shoves the woman trying to enter out of the way then slips inside.

“Hey, what the fuck?” the woman shouts in Romanian.

Marion locks eyes in the mirror with the woman washing her hands. She appraises her perfectly curled hair and hazel eyes, her slender figure.

She smirks with a raised brow.

The woman smiles with her eyes as Marion’s shift a shade darker. She slinks up to her, obviously looking her up and down, wetting her lips and smiling charmingly, exuding seduction.

“Get out,” she orders.

The woman creases her brow as Marion pushes her towards the door, forcing her out as the man slips past her inside.

“Oh come on!” the woman outside the door yells.

“Are you fucking serious?” another shouts.

Marion locks the door with a smirk. His eyes quickly glance to her chest then back up to hers.

They speak in Bulgarian.

“I thought maybe you weren’t going to come,” he says with a grin, his voice deep.

She glides up to him and runs her hands down the collar of his jacket.

“I just wanted to make you wait a little.”

Their eyes dart to each other’s lips then they’re kissing passionately in a heated frenzy, lusting after her other. He runs his hands across her body then throws her up against the cool tile wall. She grunts on impact then laughs under her breath, pulling him closer by the collar.

“Tell me what you want,” she whispers.

He holds her by the throat and kisses her lips as her fingers work off his belt buckle. His kisses move to her jaw then neck, tasting her skin as both hands drift up her tank, fingers tracing over the still tender scars on her stomach, grazing over others on her back. She sighs out a shaky breath as she yanks his belt free from the loops.

He chuckles deep in his throat and works her tank up her body.

“I have always wanted to-“

She slips the belt around his neck then through the buckle, throwing him off of her and letting the belt tighten itself. He gags and pulls at it, slipping his fingers underneath. Marion tugs him closer then decks him in the jaw. He stumbles to the side only pulling the belt tighter. She jerks his body up against hers, his back to her front, and yanks on the belt as hard as she can, cinching it around his throat. He coughs and hacks as he tears at it.

Their eyes meet in the mirror for a split second before he throws his body back against her and hits the back of his head into hers, banging it against the tile. She yells and kicks off the wall, heaving him into the stall. The door flies open with a loud bang.

The two women standing outside the door listen to the grunting and groaning coming from inside and exchange a glance.

“Jesus Christ.”

“Good for her.”

Marion shoves him to the grimy bathroom floor. He rips the belt loose and wheezes in air, glaring at her with infuriated eyes on her as she grabs the lid from the toilet tank and cracks him across the face.

He topples to the ground.

She beats him over and over again, blood spattering onto the white porcelain with every hit until his face is an unrecognizable bloody mess. She checks for a pulse, blood drenching her fingers, then she hauls his lifeless body up against the wall next to the toilet.

“Men are so dumb.” She switches to French. “You never had a fucking chance.”

She locks the stall door then crawls out from underneath, hoping to buy herself a little time on the way out. The blood-tinted water swirls down the drain as she rinses her hands, flicking a splash onto the mirror just for fun. The crimson drops drip down the glass as she stares at her reflection, her black eyes vacant.

She throws open the bathroom door triumphantly and strides out never once acknowledging the women standing there with their mouths hanging open. She slinks towards the front of the club grabbing a cocktail pick from the bar on the way out.

Marion steps out into the cool summer night air, hardly feeling it on her skin. She scrapes the blood out from under her nails with the pick, strutting down the sidewalk towards the motorcycle parked down the street. She catches sight of a striking woman leaning up against the brick wall, her dark cat eyes fixed on her. She meets her gaze; the woman looks away with a coy smile.

Marion smirks and cleans under the last nail then flicks the pick to the side and slinks up to the woman.

“Come on, baby, let’s get out of here. Go somewhere else a little more fun,” she purrs in Romanian.

“Oh,” the woman creases her brow, “um…” She points to the tall man with a stubby beard standing next to her. “ _Noi siamo italiani_.” We are from Italy.

They both grin at Marion shyly, unsure if she’ll understand.

Marion looks between the two of them then flashes her teeth.

“ _Anche meglio_.” Even better.

\--------

**PORTO, PORTUGAL**  
[Fascination – Pshycotic Beats feat. Pati Amor]

Eve rubs lotion on her face in the bathroom mirror, a plush white towel wrapped around her.

“God, I pay four hundred euros just to smell like arse.”

She slips out of the towel and into the black kimono hanging on the hook, an intricate orange dragon on the back. She shakes out her wet curls then struts out to the bedroom.

Villanelle clicks on the laptop propped up on a pillow in her lap, her messy blonde hair hanging down around her shoulders. She glances up; a smile spreads across her face at just the sight of Eve.

“That one looks better on me you know,” she says.

“You just want me to take it off,” Eve replies with a grin.

“Mm, you could take it off now,” Villanelle shrugs, “or in ten minutes.” She smirks over at Eve hoping she’ll take it off now.

Eve rolls her eyes and heads for the bottle of red wine on the table near the TV, _Casablanca_ playing on low volume. She twists a corkscrew in. The cork creaks as she works it deeper and deeper.

“Did you get a hold of Carolyn?” she asks.

“All the numbers I tried kept saying they were disconnected.”

Eve pulls out the cork with a pop.

“Should I try MI6?” Villanelle asks.

“No,” Eve responds. “Not yet.” She turns to Villanelle holding the open bottle of wine. “What about flats? Anything good?”

Villanelle grins her lopsided grin from across the room, almost too caught up in Eve to hear the question.

“Mm, a few." She nods. "Apparently the housing market in London is on the brink of collapse.”

Eve laughs as she pours a generous amount of wine into her glass. Villanelle scrolls past listing after listing.

“Do you want to live in Mayfair or Knightsbridge?" She asks. "Or on Shad Thames?”

“Uh…” Eve thinks, staring off. “I don’t know,” she shrugs, “Mayfair?”

“Mm, the Knightsbridge one has walk-in closets. And a sauna, and a hot tub.”

“Okay, Knightsbridge.”

“Whoa, but one on Shad Thames has private bridge access. And views of the Tower Bridge,” Villanelle adds devilishly, looking up for Eve’s reaction.

Eve lets out a laugh and smiles. “So then Shad Thames.”

Villanelle glances back at the screen, biting her lip and scrunching her brow in concentration.

“But,” she draws out the word as she clicks on the Mayfair listing. “Mayfair has a wine cellar and a smart control system with mood settings for lights and curtains.”

Eve sighs. “Then Mayfair.”

“Eve, you’re not even considering your options.”

Eve stifles her irritation. Villanelle glances up from the screen with a smug smile only to meet Eve’s lusty eyes. They flicker at Villanelle making her heart race faster.

“Oh,” she utters, smugness replaced by excitement on her face. She looks Eve up and down, running her tongue along her lower lip before biting it.

“Should I pour you a glass?” Eve asks, sultry silkiness in her voice.

Villanelle laughs out a breath and nods.

“Bring the bottle,” she says.

Eve smiles and pours Villanelle a glass, filling it slightly less than her own while Villanelle stares blankly at the screen with a small grin on her face, suddenly very uninterested in looking at luxury apartment listings. Eve coolly holds both glasses in one hand and the bottle in the other. She gives Villanelle hers, her lecherous eyes locked on her full lips. Villanelle lights up when her fingers brush across Eve’s as she takes the glass.

“You are being awfully promiscuous tonight,” she says with a grin, her body starting to heat up under her kimono. Hers white with a growling tiger and pink flowers on the back.

Eve lets out a chuckle as she rounds to the other side of the bed.

“Too bad you aren’t like this all the time,” Villanelle adds.

Eve laughs as she climbs into bed next to Villanelle, her hazel eyes swirling with lust as they take in Eve’s features. Her eyes, her lips, her exposed collar bones...

“Are we actually going to drink this?" she asks. "Or…”

Eve keeps her eyes on Villanelle as she takes a sip, letting her bottom lip glide up off the rim as she lowers the glass.

“That did not answer my question at all.”

“Drink,” Eve orders.

Villanelle’s neck tics from Eve’s boldness. Her pupils grow bigger with desire. She brings the glass to her lips, eyes never leaving Eve’s as she sips, heart beating wildly with anticipation, waiting for Eve’s next move. Eve brushes hair behind her ear and caresses her cheek before her hand drifts to her throat. Villanelle’s muscles twitch under her touch. Her pulse quickens beneath Eve’s fingers as she leans in, squeezing a little tighter, feeling Villanelle swallow against her grip. She hovers her lips just before Villanelle’s. Villanelle inches forward, hardly able to contain herself.

Eve kisses her softly.

“Show me what you found,” she whispers.

Villanelle kisses her, wanting to do anything but.

“Who cares,” she murmurs, her lips brushing against Eve’s. “I don’t even like London.”

Eve sighs out a laugh. “Me neither anymore.”

“We can just stay at a hotel.” Villanelle kisses her. “The Savoy.” She grins.

Eve squeezes her throat playfully.

“How romantic.”

Villanelle lets out a throaty laugh. “Not the same room.”

“Why not?”

Villanelle’s breath hastens and becomes shallower. Her body quivers.

“Eve,” she breathes. “I need to set down this down so I can use both hands.”

She leans away; Eve tightens her grip around her throat.

“Let me finish this glass then you can do whatever you want.”

“Eve, are you serious?”

Eve smiles against Villanelle’s lips.

“Mhm.”

Villanelle leans in again but Eve pulls away with a confident smirk. Villanelle breathes out a laugh and grins, completely captivated by this side of Eve.

“Drink fast,” she urges.

Eve laughs and takes a long sip, smiling at Villanelle with her eyes. The blood returns to the imprint left behind from her grip on her neck. She scoots closer and Villanelle throws her arm up on the pillow. Eve lies back against her, nuzzling around as she settles in place.

She scans the listings on the screen noticing the exorbitant prices, some upwards of ten million euros.

“Jesus, we can afford that?” she asks.

“I can afford it," Villanelle replies. "I don’t know where you will live. Probably back in that old apartment that smelled like garbage with all the little mice running around.”

Eve scoffs and rolls her eyes.

“Eve, I am joking. Of course you can stay in the guest room, you just have to pay me. But I will only accept one form of payment.” Villanelle smirks as she runs her fingers through Eve’s wet curls, inhaling her sweet scent. Eve takes another sip then scrolls down to the other apartments Villanelle picked.

“Eight million euros?” she asks in awe as she clicks on the listing.

“The Twelve started paying triple towards the end. They were desperate.”

“Jesus.” Eve drinks as she thinks. “Mm, okay but even after all the traveling and hotels you can _still_ afford this place?”

“Eve, I could buy us three of those if I wanted.”

Eve sits up. “What, actually?” she asks in disbelief.

Villanelle shrugs casually, as if having over 20 million euros is not a big deal.

“Yeah.”

Eve chuckles. “Wow.”

“You know I am expensive,” Villanelle says, taking a refined sip of her wine.

“Yeah, but _that_ expensive? Jesus Christ. Where do you keep all the money?” she asks.

"Foreign banks mostly." Villanelle shrugs. "Zürich, Singapore, Belmopan. A lot of different names in a lot of different places.”

Eve laughs. “God, you are amazing.”

“I know.” Villanelle shrugs with a grin.

She takes a sip of wine, Eve mirrors her. Their gazes grow in intensity at each other over the glasses, their fervent eyes darkening.

“Could you?” Eve hands Villanelle her glass.

“Mhm.”

Villanelle sets both next to the bottle on the bedside table.

“And this can just-"

Eve closes the laptop.

Villanelle grabs it and heaves it in the direction of a chair without care. It bounces off the ottoman and hits the ground.

She pounces on Eve, pinning her to the mattress and kissing her hungrily, hovers just above her.

“Anything I want?” she asks.

Eve pulls the tie on her kimono letting it open, gliding her hands underneath across Villanelle’s smooth skin.

“Anything.”

\-------- [No Friend of Mine – Unloved]

**PALERMO, SICILY**  
Mariella checks her watch, standing near the entrance of a wooden boathouse, the sky dark above her. She hears the faint clicking of boots on the wood in a slightly unsteady rhythm, gradually getting louder.

Right on time.

She smiles to herself, eager to have this meeting after planning it several weeks ago. The clicking draws closer but Mariella keeps her gaze on the starry sky. She immediately recognizes the soft touch on her shoulder and turns with a grin to meet Adalene’s easy eyes, taking her gently by the shoulders as they exchange a kiss on each cheek.

Mariella speaks in Italian, Adalene in French.

“I cannot believe that I am seeing you here with my own two eyes,” Mariella says, unable to contain her wide grin.

“I never thought I would be meeting with you like this but, here we are." Adalene smiles warmly. "Such a romantic location," she observes, "and in Cosa Nostra territory.”

She flashes a playful grin at Mariella who chuckles, a warmness settling over her from being in the company of an old friend.

“You look well,” she says.

“Prompt medical attention." Adalene nods. "And the Kevlar prevented most of the damage. I managed to get away with only a bullet above my hip.”

“Well I am grateful to whatever higher powers be that it was nothing more.” Mariella smiles as they exchange a heartfelt gaze.

“I have a feeling we have to go straight into business?” Adalene asks.

Mariella sighs, “Yes, I am afraid that we will not have a lot of time together.”

“I understand," Adalene nods, "that is how it has to be done now.”

“One day soon I hope to be sharing a drink with you back in Budapest.”

Adalene laughs sweetly. “I often dream about those days.”

Mariella gazes out to the night, a sliver of moon in the sky.

“Sometimes it feels like that was a lifetime ago,” she muses.

“It almost was,” Adalene replies with a grin.

They both chuckle lightly as they reminisce about their times together many moons ago.

“So.” Adalene breaks the silence after a moment. “Where do you stand?”

Mariella keeps her eyes up on the dark sky, taking a breath to prepare herself.

“I have had separate meetings with Lesko and Vedran," she says. "It took almost a month for them to agree but I believe they are willing to cooperate moving forward.” She looks back at Adalene who nods at her. “The organization nearly collapsed after Odesa. We lost our hold in Africa after revolts and uprisings. Beijing has made it quite clear that foreign military intelligence activities will not be tolerated. And our presence in the Americas is starting to slip and will probably soon be lost. Not to mention that the Americans are now interested in our affairs, and you know what happens when the CIA wants to get involved.”

Adalene laughs at that last bit. “So you are trying to salvage what is left only in Europe?”

“Yes," Mariella sighs tiredly, "the hope is that if we can regain secure control of Europe that we will be able to use our avenues and extend back into other continents.”

“Bold.”

Mariella laughs. “I know. But they are not simply going to give in because matters are suddenly more difficult.”

“And their attitude towards you?” Adalene asks.

“Well they are hesitant to trust but I cannot blame them. I shot Saverio on a busy street in the middle of Roma.”

Adalene laughs and Mariella joins her.

“You have always been a thrill-seeker, Mariella.”

She chuckles. “Oh, it was a long time coming. His arrogance was getting to be almost impossible to endure.”

She leans against a large wooden post and Adalene settles next to her, hardly any space between them.

“There must be a great number of individuals still tied to the organization?” Adalene inquires.

“Vedran has taken it upon himself to intimidate anyone with any inclinations to defect or surrender to an intelligence agency.”

“But with limited resources I would think he cannot do much?”

"True," Mariella nods, "he cannot. But, it is surprising the amount of people who have remained loyal and maintained composure, waiting for further orders.”

“Loyalty is one of the commandments, no?” Adalene jests playfully.

“It is, it is,” Mariella laughs. “But people are always willing to change their position for the right price.”

“Price or protection.”

Adalene gives her a look. The lightness falls away from Mariella as she suddenly becomes more somber.

“There will be loss on both sides, Adalene. It cannot be prevented.”

“I know. But, this cannot continue to go on.”

Mariella looks away with a furrowed brow.

“It does not get any easier as the years go on. In fact, I think it only becomes harder with time.”

Worry fills Adalene's calm eyes.

“You did not insert yourself in this position all this time for nothing, Mariella.”

“Sometimes I wonder why I ever did at all,” Mariella replies.

Adalene frowns and pushes off the post, stepping in front of Mariella and taking her hands to comfort her.

She switches to Italian. “This is bigger than the AISE, the DGSE, or MI6. It is about protecting democracy, keeping order in the world.”

Mariella forces a smile and nods, keeping her eyes down as she lets out a long sigh.

“You are more brave than me for doing all that you have," Adalene says. "More clever and more intuitive.” She squeezes her hand. “The most sly out of all of us.”

Mariella smiles now at Adalene’s words.

She continues. “You are the only one who can do this, Mariella. We need you, _I_ need you, in this”—she gazes sincerely into Mariella’s eyes—“to help see it through." She speaks passionately. "You are so vital, in this operation. We would not be able to do it without you.”

Mariella lets out a flattered laugh as her cheeks flush.

“Adalene, you have always been so good with words.”

“I do not have to search hard to find them for you,” she replies with a sweet smile.

Mariella chuckles and looks away, shaking her head.

“It is good to see you.”

Adalene grins, happy to have restored confidence in her friend, watching as Mariella stares off at the starry sky as if waiting for some signal. Adalene glances up with her, the water gently lapping up against the boats.

Mariella lets out a sigh and turns back to Adalene.

“How is she?” she asks earnestly.

“I have not yet seen her. But I know she has started working again.”

“She recovered well?” Mariella asks.

“Well enough to work. You and I both know Marion to be a fighter.”

Mariella lets out a laugh. “In all senses of that word.”

She checks her watch. Adalene does the same and sighs.

“Villanelle and Eve returning, Marion able and working. What timing is that, huh?” Mariella poses, eyes up on the moon.

“You do not feel it?” Adalene replies, grinning as she straightens her coat. “It is like…hm...an electric charge in the air.”

Mariella gives her friend one last smile before turning to go.

“You have always been the more sensitive one,” she says over her shoulder. “Give Carolyn my best.”

“Always _mon amie_ ,” Adalene calls back.

\--------

**LUXEMBOURG**  
[Eyes – Unloved]  
Marion struts around a modern, open concept house, the black Balenciaga boots on her feet having red treads. She admires the fine art hanging on the walls and the family photographs set on the tables in the long hallway as she slowly returns to the kitchen, the tall windows in the living room looking out into the black night outside. She twirls the two rings on her middle finger with her thumb, one diamond the other ruby, both with ostentatiously large stones. The silver watch weighs down her wrist a bit as it should for being an Omega. In her other hand, she carries a large and hefty rolling pin, blood dripping down the smooth varnished surface.

She stops to contemplate the large framed photograph on the wall of her target with her family on a sailboat. She studies their expressions, narrowing her eyes as she takes note of the creases on the outside of their eyes, the way the corners of their mouths pull up in a smile, their arms are wrapped around each other.

She tilts her head.

Her target smiles like the others, showing her teeth with dimples in her cheeks but there's something lacking in her steely grey eyes.

“Hm." Marion squints. "You cannot hide.”

She strolls back into the kitchen to find the woman on the floor attempting to pull herself in the direction of the rather large assortment of knives hanging on the magnet secured to the wall, blood soaking her face, large gashes splitting her skin open above her eyebrow across her cheek, and in her hairline. One knee is bent at an unnatural angle rendering it useless as she continues to drag herself towards the blades, a resolute look on her face despite her very damaged condition.

Marion laughs. “You think you are going to make it all the way over there?”

The woman groans in anger, unwilling to go down in her own home without one last attempt to fight back. Marion kicks her over onto her back with ease, the woman’s body weak. She secures one end of the rolling pin under her boot beside the woman’s head then positions the long cylinder over her throat, her black nails shining through blood-coated fingers. The woman glares up at her through swollen eyes, dread starting to set in. Marion grins, her black eyes cold and inhospitable. She leans back against the counter and places her other boot on the other end of the rolling pin and steps down. The woman chokes as Marion presses harder with a breathy laugh. She holds out her hand flaunting the rings, twirling them with a savage grin.

“Thank you for these," she says with a feral smile. "Such a nice gift. The ruby matches your face.”

She flashes her teeth then steps down harder, crushing the woman’s windpipe, continuing to twirl the rings as she glares down with malice.

Suddenly, her phone rings.

Her brow creases as she exchanges a confused look with the woman but doesn’t let up. She slides the rings securely on her finger then slips her phone out of her back pocket, smiling and letting out a laugh at the caller.

“ _Bonjour_ ,” she answers charmingly. “You are calling at such a perfect time. I am just finishing up in Luxembourg and was about-”

“Your independent work is done.” Carolyn’s voice cuts her off.

Dismay replaces the amusement on Marion’s face. Her lip twitches.

“What?”

She glances down at the woman who is still somehow clinging to life. She growls as she steps down harder, an awful crunching noise the result.

“You’re being called in as an operative,” Carolyn states.

Marion glares down, watching the woman’s eyes drain of all light.

“But still working an assassin?” she asks.

“Your job will be very similar to what it is now, yes.”

Marion scoffs. “So then why are you calling?”

The woman’s body finally goes limp under the rolling pin.

“You will be required to work on a team of other operatives,” Carolyn explains.

“Team?” Marion laughs. “You know I do not play well with others, Carolyn.”

“Not even…" Carolyn pauses for a fraction of a second too long, the brief silence making Marion uneasy. "With Villanelle?”

Marion’s neck tics as she breathes out a chuckle.

“Villanelle?” she queries, stepping off of the rolling pin and wandering away from the bloody mess in the kitchen towards the windows in the living room.

“And Eve,” Carolyn adds.

Marion lets out a laugh. “I thought they were on the run, hiding away together. Not doing this kind of work anymore.”

“It seems they can only do so much running before things start to become less exciting.”

“Villanelle and Eve…” Marion stares off, a sliver of curiosity appearing in her dark eyes. “Hm. And what if I say no?”

“That is not an option for you, Marion.”

“Not an option?” she retorts, anger overriding the curiosity. “Do not tell me what my options are, Carolyn.”

“I don’t think you understand that this is the only option you have. The Twelve will be looking for you to avenge the death of their leader. I hardly suspect they’d be willing to sign you back on as an assassin. And the DGSE seems to be uninterested in making use of you or bringing you in for an assignment. So if you’re not an assassin, and you’re not an intelligence agent, then what are you, Marion?” Carolyn questions.

Marion clenches her jaw; her upper lip twitches. Her neck tics again as rage spreads through her tensing all her muscles. She takes a deep steadying breath, a shudder running down her body as she works to keep her temper under control.

Carolyn remains silent on the other line.

“I don’t want to work with Villanelle,” Marion says in a growl, “or Eve.”

“You’ll do what the job requires,” Carolyn states evenly.

Marion fumes, her lips curling in a brief snarl.

“So same job with a different title. That is all you have to offer?”

“Well you still get to kill and that seems to be the only thing you’re ever preoccupied with,” Carolyn says.

Enmity fills Marion’s piercing black eyes as fire pulses through her veins. Her thoughts jump around to killing another person tonight.

But how.

And with what?

Where?

She makes up her mind.

Soon.

Her bare hands.

It doesn’t matter.

Carolyn’s voice almost startles her. “After the completion of the operation there may be an opportunity for you to be brought on as an operative for an agency with immunity and protection. This is likely the best offer you’ve ever received.”

Marion’s eyes are wild; she’s hardly listening anymore.

“I’ve already sent you the location and time for your first meeting," Carolyn continues. "Be sure to show on time, it would be unwise to be late.”

Marion sets her jaw, her vacant eyes becoming frenzied.

“And you’ll have to destroy your phone,” Carolyn adds, almost as an afterthought.

Marion lets out an agitated breath, baring her teeth.

“Don’t do anything irrational," Carolyn advises. "No one will be there to help you find your way out of a mess.”

The line goes silent.

Marion yells and strides back to the kitchen, retrieving the rolling pin from the ground. She checks her phone for the meeting information only one time before setting it on the counter and smashing it to pieces in one hit.

\--------

**LONDON**  
[If – Unloved]  
Eve and Villanelle stride up to Carolyn’s front door noticing all the porch lights are off, the inside lights too.

Villanelle peers into a dark window.

“Maybe she moved,” she says.

Eve knocks on the door. They glance at each other while they wait. Her curls are pulled back in a low bun and she wears a casual but stylish outfit sporting a Ted Baker coat. Villanelle’s hair is also in a bun though high on her head and she wears a red Valentino bomber jacket, rockstuds along the zipper.

Eve goes to knock again as Villanelle gives the handle a try.

It’s unlocked.

“Huh.” Villanelle pushes the door open. “That seems a little arrogant.”

Eve gives Villanelle an unsure look then follows her inside. They squint in the dark trying to make out the edges of furniture as they slowly navigate towards the kitchen.

“Carolyn?” Eve calls out cautiously.

They both stop where they are and wait for a response.

Nothing.

Villanelle takes in her surroundings better than Eve, noticing the coat on the hook, the opened book placed face down on the coffee table to keep its place, the remotes tossed lazily on the couch. It almost feels staged.

“Maybe she got murdered?" Villanelle tosses out. "All the spying stuff finally caught up to her.”

“Oh Jesus." Eve rolls her eyes and even in the dim light Villanelle can see her shaking her head.

They tread into the kitchen, eyes immediately finding the note on the refrigerator under the red bus magnet. Villanelle slides it free.

Acton Cemetery, 22:05

“Well,” Eve utters.

“We’re going to be late.”

\--------

Eve and Villanelle stand outside the front gates of the cemetery, both a little uneasy with being there at such a late hour of the night. Eve checks the time on her phone.

22:17

“What the hell?" she scoffs. "I thought she’d already be here waiting for us.”

“Maybe somebody else wrote the note knowing we’d find it and come here expecting to meet Carolyn, not prepared for an attack.”

“Oh God, I didn’t even think about that.”

“You didn’t?” Villanelle creases her brow at Eve. “Eve, you are a terrible secret agent.”

“We’re not secret agents,” Eve says tiredly.

“Mm, secret operative doesn’t sound as cool.”

Eve pulls out her hair tie and shakes out her curls.

“Maybe we should-“

The headlights of the black Aston Martin parked on the curb flash once as the doors all unlock. Eve looks at Villanelle with uncertainty then her eyes find Carolyn who appears seemingly out of nowhere walking down the sidewalk towards them.

“What?” Eve lets out an amused laugh. “Where were you?”

Carolyn strides past her to the driver’s side door.

“Get in,” she says.

Villanelle looks at Eve with wide excited eyes.

“We are definitely secret agents,” she says excitedly with a grin, reaching for the passenger door as Carolyn hits the lock button. She pulls on the handle anyway.

Carolyn gives her an impassive look.

“You’ll both be riding in the back,” she says.

Eve holds back a laugh as Villanelle sulks and steps to the back door. Carolyn unlocks the doors and they all climb in, the engine humming as she steers away from the curb and down the street.

“You know I don’t think you’ve ever once been late to a meeting,” Eve says grinning, a little proud of herself for pointing out this fact.

Carolyn glances to the side mirror then back to the road.

“Late?” she replies.

“Uh, the note said twenty-two oh five,” Villanelle says, exchanging a confused look with Eve.

“Did it?” Carolyn responds cryptically, peering in the rearview mirror with a grin at Villanelle then Eve.

Carolyn drives skillfully, fast but in control as she navigates to a second location. A large cargo truck appears behind them, following them turn for turn. Eve and Villanelle both watch in the side mirrors as the truck inches closer, headlights blaring behind them.

“Carolyn?” Eve queries finally, uncomfortable by the proximity of the truck.

Carolyn glances in the rearview making eye contact with Villanelle. In one coordinated motion, a car of the same make and color pulls away from the curb and Carolyn takes its spot. The large truck passes by and another passes in the other lane coming from the opposite direction.

She cuts the engine.

Eve looks out the windows in wonder and lets out a chuckle. “What the hell?”

She looking at Villanelle who bounces her brow up and down with a big grin on her face.

Carolyn opens her door.

“Come on.”

She steps out of the car and heads for the narrow side street never pausing to look back to make sure Eve and Villanelle are still behind her. Villanelle playfully bumps her hip into Eve’s, clearly excited by this turn of events. Eve waves her off dismissively while trying to stifle a smile. They follow Carolyn down the narrow street, taking turns this way and that towards a vacant lot behind a towering abandoned warehouse, only a few street lights on the other side of the lot giving them light. Carolyn checks her watch then turns to them promptly. They come to an abrupt halt.

They all glance around at each other, Eve and Villanelle eyeing Carolyn curiously and she astutely evaluating them. Crickets chirp around them in the late night.

[Sombre – Unloved]

“I’ve never been fond of pleasantries so I’ll just jump right into it," Carolyn starts. "While you two have been on leave there have been efforts to push the start of phase two of Operation Odesa, or Operation Alexandria as it so has been named. The main objective of the operation is to execute the remaining members of The Twelve wh-”

“Remaining?” Eve interjects. “Wh- how many?”

“There are a number of members who are still active for the organization. Keepers, handlers,” Carolyn shrugs, “commanders, assassins.”

“Commanders?” Villanelle asks, curiosity piqued.

“Yes, individuals who oversee a region and are responsible for a set of keepers, handlers, and assassins,” Carolyn responds simply.

Eve throws up her hands. “Oh-“

“The Twelve have diminished greatly in size and power but still have a presence in parts of Asia and the Americas with their stronghold being here, in Europe. But perhaps more important than their remaining territory is their strategic political efforts. The Twelve have planted agents in an unfortunately large number of positions within governments, militaries, and secret intelligence agencies,” Carolyn explains impassively.

Eve rubs her temples. “Oh, God.”

Villanelle watches her. “So…what?" She shrugs. "What are we supposed to do? Track them all down and kill them?”

“More or less, yes.”

Eve lets out an incredulous laugh. “You want us to just go out there and kill all of them?”

“Well not all of them," Carolyn replies, "that would be nearly impossible. Your function as leading operatives will be to identify, profile, track down, and eliminate the influential keepers and remaining assassins.”

“Oh, great," Eve retorts. "Just the keepers and assassins.”

“This seemed so much more fun a minute ago,” Villanelle mumbles, a scowl on her face.

“You will not be working alone, you will be part of a team of operatives consisting of Elena, Bear, an agent of the BND-“

“BND?” Eve asks.

“Yes," Carolyn sighs, "you will be operating out of Berlin on this.”

“So much for Shad Thames,” Villanelle mutters over to Eve.

Eve ignores her, too intrigued by Carolyn’s words.

“What about MI6?” she asks.

“MI6 is taking a step back as they reshuffle upper-level management in the intelligence operations department. Quite a few positions still need to be filled.”

She stares harshly into Eve, then Villanelle. Villanelle juts out her chin and looks over at Eve trying to act casual, like there’s no way she could possibly know what Carolyn is referring to.

“There is one other person you will be working with,” Carolyn adds.

“Oh God.”

“Please don’t say-“

“Marion.”

“Oh, Jesus Christ.” Eve pushes her curls back as she laughs in disbelief, having to walk away and collect herself for a moment.

Villanelle sets her jaw and takes a long, deep breath shaking her head almost imperceptibly as she stares blankly at the pavement, letting the air out as slow as possible.

Eve returns, dark eyes set ablaze.

“Wow, well-“

“This operation will be similar to Odesa in that all communications and any exchange of intel must be done in-person only. Eve, you will be assigned to various locations where you will meet with other operatives and retrieve intel gathered by their agencies on selected targets.”

Eve scoffs loudly as she shakes her head, almost in protest.

“Would you rather have the responsibility of executing highly skilled assassins?” Carolyn retorts.

Eve bites her tongue.

“No she would not,” Villanelle answers for her. “You’ll have to excuse her, she hasn’t had any wine tonight.”

Eve shoots Villanelle a furious look, her eyes fiercely dark. Carolyn assesses her. Their stares lock on to each other for almost a second too long making Villanelle shift around as she glances between them.

“Right, well.” Carolyn looks to Villanelle. “Villanelle, you and Marion-“

Villanelle groans while making a disgusted face.

Carolyn glares at her frigidly. “You and Marion,” she continues, “will be working independently and likely together-“

“Together? You want me to work with her? On a job where we are both armed, and then expect me not to kill her?”

Eve lets out a laugh.

“I don’t expect, I demand, that you don’t kill her," Carolyn states.

Eve gives Villanelle a smug, entertained look. Villanelle grumbles, clenching her jaw.

Eve sighs, refocusing. “Okay.” She runs a hand over her head, the other on her hip as she calculates. “Uh…okay, so if we execute-“

“Me execute,” Villanelle corrects. “Not you.”

Eve closes her eyes and rests her head in her hand as she lets out an exasperated breath.

“Okay. If Villanelle and Marion execute-”

“Not Marion.”

“Jesus Christ!” she glares at Villanelle, her temper slipping.

Villanelle forces away an amused grin, pressing her lips in a thin line with her brows raised, very entertained with getting a rise out of Eve but she doesn’t dare to look at her. Carolyn clasps her hands calmly and watches them with growing impatience.

Eve rubs her forehead in an attempt to settle herself and regain some composure. “Jesus.” She gets her thoughts organized. “Okay. If the assassins and keepers are executed then handlers become useless. The Twelve can’t order hits anymore, information disappears, there are less members to try to hold power so the whole organization collapses, which honestly is what I thought was going to happen after Odesa so really, this is just a little insane.”

“In an organization as expansive at The Twelve there is always someone in a lower position ready to rise up the ranks and fill in. Executing _the_ Twelve was certainly a heavy hit but further effort will be required to eradicate their influence entirely,” Carolyn says, matter-of-fact.

All Eve can do is shake her head as she stares at the ground, thoughts whirling around her head.

“What about the commanders?” Villanelle inquires with a serious creased brow.

“With no assassins, handlers, or keepers there won’t be much left to command.”

“What," Eve scoffs, "so we’re just not targeting them?”

“Well you will be just not at the start. The keepers and assassins are the more imperative targets.”

Villanelle raises her brow. “Imperative?” she repeats, intrigued by the choice of word.

Carolyn looks from her to Eve, scrutinizing them with keen eyes.

“An empire is nothing without its infantry,” she says plainly.

Villanelle lets out an unimpressed laugh glancing over at Eve for her reaction but she’s staring off to the side lost in thought.

“Okay, okay,” Eve nods, following along, “uh…what about the sleeper agents?”

“That will be my responsibility,” Carolyn answers.

“On your own?” Villanelle asks, thinking she should be able to work alone too then.

“No, alongside trusted colleagues from various agencies.”

“Oh here we go.” Eve throws up her hand. “Let’s hear it then. Get it over with.”

“What?” Carolyn shrugs.

“Don’t you have some long-winded explanation of how you met them? Some 80s scandal somewhere?”

“No, not at all.”

Eve scrunches her brow. “What you mean you’re not going to tell us where they’re from? Or what agencies?”

“Doesn’t seem necessary.”

“Well it’s just that norm-“

“This meeting has to be brief, Eve. The circumstances are much different than they were before.”

“Wow," Eve scoffs, "uh, okay. What else do we have to get to? Because I’m going to need a drink, very soon.”

“The bottle from La Mission Haut-Brion,” Villanelle chimes in.

“Oh no, I was thinking the Vega Sicilia.”

“But that-“

“I’ve gotten each of you new passports,” Carolyn interrupts, all her remaining patience rapidly disappearing. “Both with different identities for the time being allowing you unrestricted travel to all continents.”

She hands each of them a passport in a sealed clear bag along with a new phone. Villanelle admires the phone through the plastic.

Carolyn watches her. “I suggest you do something with your old one.”

Villanelle slips her old phone out of her pocket, bounces it once in her hand then heaves it as far as she possibly can across the parking lot with a grunt. It shatters to pieces on the cement. Eve takes a deep breath beside her, pressing a finger to her forehead. Villanelle turns to Eve with a proud smile.

“Give me yours,” she says, bouncing with excitement.

Eve grudgingly pulls out her phone and hands it to Villanelle who again heaves it as far as she can, this time with an overjoyed grin on her face. Eve’s phone breaks into bits not far from her.

“Well.” Carolyn clears her throat. “Now that that’s done with. Eve, you will be joining me to the United States for a meeting with the CIA.”

“The US?” Eve cackles in astonishment. “Is that a joke?”

“Hardly.”

“Oh Jesus,” Eve grimaces, “I don’t want to go to Virginia. Can’t you take someone else?”

“Elena refused.”

“Oh, she gets to refuse?”

“Well she threatened to leave the operation and she’s a rather good operative and I wanted to keep her on the team so…yes.”

Villanelle barks a laugh at Eve.

“Plus you lived there for a short while, so,” Carolyn shrugs, “it seemed more appropriate.”

Eve grumbles in disgust. “What do we even have to do there?”

“It seems the CIA is rather indignant that they were not involved in Operation Odesa and they’re not entirely thrilled with the high volume of contract kills in Europe in the last two years. Nor are they particularly pleased with the clearly coordinated attack on certain high-profile individuals around the world," Carolyn explains. "We’ll have to attempt to assuage tensions while getting a sense of how much they really know.”

Eve gives Villanelle a look of displeasure, hoping for a little support.

“It’s about time they noticed something,” Villanelle says with a shrug.

Carolyn pulls the car key out of her pocket, a red phone booth keychain attached to it. The last item on the agenda before she can adjourn their meeting which she is entirely ready to do.

Villanelle’s eyes fix on the colorful keychain.

“What is that?” she asks.

“Your first target.”

A wave of seriousness washes over Villanelle and Eve, erasing any playfulness from their features. Villanelle hands Eve her bag and runs her hands down her trousers, her palms starting to dampen with sweat. Carolyn hands her the keychain with a hint of intrigue in her eyes.

“Johann Reiter. Keeper," she says. "Here in London.”

Villanelle’s breath moves to her chest as she marvels at the miniature phone booth, a small barcode on the side of it.

“When?” she asks without looking up.

Eve eyes her carefully as she notices the faint humming of a car engine approaching. Carolyn checks her watch then slips an index card out of her pocket. She hands it to Villanelle. It contains a profile of Johann next to a photograph of him.

“There’s a gun in the glove compartment," she says. "If you leave now you should be able to meet Eve back at The Savoy in time to finish that bottle of Bordeuax. It’s far better than the Vega Sicilia.”

Eve raises her brows at Carolyn, piqued by her remark.

“Why did you even give me this then?” Villanelle scoffs, a shudder running through her body

“So you could both see how it works," Carolyn replies. "I suggest Eve take it with her. It would be a shame to lose it and be at a disadvantage right from the start.”

A car, not an Aston Martin, flicks on its brights flooding the darkness with light. Eve and Villanelle shield their eyes, the blinding beams making it impossible to see the driver’s face.

“Be sure to remove the false plates,” Carolyn adds before turning on her heel and getting in the passenger seat of the car. It turns sharply and speeds off down the side street.

Eve and Villanelle exchange a glance, Eve’s eyes wary, Villanelle’s razor-sharp. She wraps her fingers around the keychain, tightening her fist.

“I’m driving.”

\-------- [Fail We May Sail We Must – Unloved]

Villanelle takes a seat at the bar of a dingy pub with a bit of a rougher crowd. The clanking of billiard balls resounds over the boisterous chatter and the sports games on the many TV screens. The bartender, a large man wearing a flannel with rolled sleeves and stains on the front ambles her way.

“What can I get ya?” he asks.

“Water,” Villanelle orders with a straight-face.

He narrows his eyes at her as he fills a glass with ice, trying to get a read on her. She stares at him blankly, animosity starting to flow into her dark predatory eyes.

“So you walk in here and ask for a water," he says, filling the glass with water from the soda gun, "which means maybe you’re sober and want people to think you’re drinking, or you’re already outright legless and trying to sober yourself up.” He sets the glass in front of her. “If I was to bet on it I’d say it’s the first.”

Villanelle grabs the glass.

“If I wanted to have a drink I wouldn’t come to this shit hole and drink something from a plastic bottle.”

The smile fades from his face as he scowls, insulted by her remark.

“You can get your water somewhere else then if that’s how you feel,” he says, waving a hand at her and shuffling to the other end of the bar grumbling in anger.

Villanelle keeps her gaze down, occasionally glancing to the side and catching glimpses of her target through the crowd of people across the bar. She drums her fingers on the bar top and shifts in her chair as a younger woman with dark hair and green eyes slinks up next to her, a little too close for her own good. She leans against the counter, sticking her chest out in an obvious way.

Villanelle rolls her eyes and sets her jaw.

Not so long ago she would have been entertained by this woman and her great efforts to get her attention. Perhaps she would have taken her back to a hotel somewhere for the night only to forget her name in the morning. But now she becomes more and more annoyed the longer the girl stands there and really her whole act is ridiculous if not pathetic.

The bartender reluctantly returns to Villanelle’s end of the bar.

“Elderflower gin and tonic,” the girl orders, all smiles before chancing another glance at Villanelle.

“You got it.” The bartender nods then shoots Villanelle a sour look before turning to grab the plastic bottle of gin off the shelf.

The woman steals far too many glances while she waits. Villanelle purposely turns away from her to look across the room, noticing Johann slip out the back door. The bartender slides the woman’s drink on the counter. She takes a sizable sip.

“Hey,” she tries, a surprising amount of confidence in her voice.

Villanelle bites the inside of her lip in annoyance and takes a breath before turning. The woman smiles at her flirtatiously, not at all trying to be subtle. Villanelle looks her up and down, meeting her eager eyes before standing up.

“Do I really look like I would be interested in someone who orders a drink with elderflower?” she retorts, her Russian accent thick and laced with derision.

The woman’s mouth falls open. “Excuse me?”

“Do you want me to say it again?”

The woman scoffs, crossing her arms and looking away.

“Hit on someone more desperate than you," Villanelle smiles, "and you might actually have a chance.” She slings her glass across the bar top into the woman’s drink causing both to fly off the counter and spill all over her. 

A self-satisfied smirk spreads across Villanelle’s face as she leaves the scorned woman behind and strides across the bar towards the back door, weaving around people effortlessly like a jungle cat on the prowl.

[Sigh – Unloved]

She slips out the door into the alley behind the building. A younger man stares down at his phone and puffs on a vape. He glances up at her then back at his phone, then up again when his brain clouded registers her beauty but the hostility in her eyes. He blinks then blows out a cloud of smoke and scurries back inside, after which Villanelle nonchalantly slides the PVC pipe lying in the pile of junk through both door handles, preventing the doors from being opened.

Johann stands with his back to her, unaware of her presence, a cigarette between his fingers. He takes another puff as Villanelle glides over to him.

“Smoking is bad for you,” she says in a Cockney accent.

He turns, his eyes widening as he registers the woman behind the voice. His mouth hangs open as he slowly exhales the smoke.

“You should quit.” Villanelle slips back into her natural accent, realizing he recognizes her.

Carolyn neglected to mention that.

Villanelle’s heart beats faster with anticipation as they stare at each other both calculating their next move.

“Don’t try to run,” she warns.

He flicks the cigarette at her face then turns and tries to do just that. Villanelle growls and chases after him, catching him after only a few steps. She grabs his shoulders and throws him against the brick wall.

“Do you not speak English?” she retorts with a snarl.

Johann squirms around, Villanelle’s forearm pressed against his throat. She smiles as she leans into him putting more weight behind it.

“What do you want?” he coughs out, his accent German.

Villanelle gazes off to the side, really pondering the question.

“Hm…" She cocks her head. "Exciting job, irresistible wife, houses all over the world.” She looks back at him, earnest. “To be called by my real name.”

He stares at her in bewilderment.

She takes a sharp breath and shifts back into a more playful, humorous tone. “But money mostly." She nods. "So I can buy my girlfriend whatever she wants. Nice clothes, shoes, jewelry. _Wine_." She emphasizes the last word with her eyes.

His brow scrunches, a twisted look of disconcertment on his face.

“She has expensive taste but doesn’t even know it. I never let her see the price tags,” Villanelle explains as if she's letting him in on the secret. She lets out a laugh. “You should have seen her before," she says. "Amazing but, zero sense of fashion. I mean really it was almost painful to see such a beautiful woman in such terrible clothes.”

He stands there perfectly still, mouth slightly agape. For a moment she wonders if he’s already starting to lose consciousness and eases up a bit. He hits her in the gut then tries to wriggle free. She shoves him back against the brick wall and slips out the gun, holding the muzzle up to his stomach. He recoils even though it’s a minute Beretta Pico resembling the pistol she carried in Rome an awful lot.

“Don’t play with me," she smiles unnervingly, "I’m already a little on edge.” She lets out a laugh.

Fear starts to creep into his icy blue eyes.

“Who sent you?” he asks, his voice shaking.

“Does it really matter?” Villanelle replies, pushing the gun into his body with a grin, excitement starting to course through her.

It has been a while.

“I-, I-, I thought you didn’t work for them anymore,” he stammers.

“I don’t.” She shakes her head. “Career change.”

“What? But-“

“Mm well, organization change,” she corrects herself.

He writhes around with a sullen glower, panic flooding his eyes, his heart racing wildly.

“Why would you come to London?" she asks. "Of all places.”

“I thought it would be like hiding in plain sight.” He frowns.

“That is so stupid.” She laughs and digs the muzzle into him more. “You deserve to die just for that.”

“No no wait, please," he begs. "What do you want, huh? There has to be something. I can give you names, information, anything. Please, please don’t shoot me.”

Villanelle smiles, reveling in his cowardice. She leans in close to him.

“People always ramble on and on at the end, as if it will make any difference.” She barks a laugh.

“Please, please, please,” he implores, cowering into the wall, his eyes becoming watery.

Villanelle lets out a breathy laugh. “It really only makes it easier to pull the trigger.”

She smiles, not a hint of light behind her eyes.

“No, no-”

She covers his mouth with her hand and fires two shots into his abdomen then grips him by the throat, staring into his eyes, her own wide and gleaming as the thrill rushes through her making her breath unsteady. His eyes empty slowly as his body gets heavier and heavier. Her arm quivers as she clutches his throat and watches the life fade from him bit by bit, straining her muscles for as long as she can so she can see it all slip away, every last drop. Then she lets him go.

His body collapses to the ground leaving a splatter of blood on the brick behind him. She stares down at him for a moment with a small grin on her face, her dark eyes transfixed by the blood soaking and spreading across the fabric of his shirt. Her eyes flicker once.

Then it’s gone.

She slips the gun away then grabs him by the ankles and drags his body towards the car parked illegally in the alleyway.

“I really should have parked closer,” she groans as she lugs his body. “Why are you so heavy?”

She opens the trunk and lifts his body with a grunt, having to greatly exert herself as she hauls his upper body inside then hoists his legs and throws them in. She grips his shirt and heaves his body as far back into the compartment as it will go, shoving his legs in more, crumpling them at awkward angles to make it all fit.

“Why give us a car with such a small trunk?” She growls then slams it down leaving behind a single crimson handprint.

The Aston Martin pulls up to the front of The Savoy. Villanelle throws open the door hitting the valet attendant in the knee. He jumps back as she slides out of the car.

“Good evening, miss.”

She tosses the key at his chest and strides inside.

“Uh wait, I need to give you a ticket!” he calls after her.

He picks up the key noticing the red smudges on it.

Eve paces around the hotel room, a near-empty glass of the Bordeuax in her hand. She glances to the digital clock as she frets, running a hand over her head, her thoughts racing. She forces herself to take a deep breath as a key slips into the lock.

Her head snaps towards the door.

Villanelle strides inside, throwing the key to the side then slipping the Beretta out of her jacket pocket and heaving it to. Eve keeps her eyes on Villanelle’s but takes note of where the familiar gun lands near the wall. Villanelle’s locks her eyes onto Eve’s figure, figuring out how she's going to capture her prey. Eve assesses her quickly noticing the faint red smudges on her hand, the tenseness of her body, the intensity of her stare.

The dark energy radiating off of her.

Eve's heart picks up its rhythm as her body starts to heat up, a pleasant vibration spreading throughout her body as Villanelle shrugs off her jacket, eyes never leaving hers as she slinks up close, pausing inches from her lips. Eve slides her hand under Villanelle’s shirt, feeling her warm skin as she wraps her arm around her.

“How did it-“

Villanelle grabs her face and kisses her hard.

[Xpectations – Unloved]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah shit here we go again!
> 
> In keeping with Killing Eve tradition, no one is truly dead until you explicitly show it
> 
> Life has decided to get more demanding recently so unfortunately it will probably take close to a month to get new chapters up
> 
> Feedback is always welcome
> 
> Outfits:  
> Marion's [Valentino Biker Jacket](https://www.farfetch.com/shopping/men/valentino-biker-jacket-item-12120901.aspx?storeid=10952)  
> Marion's [Christian Louboutin Ankle Boots](https://www.matchesfashion.com/us/products/Christian-Louboutin-Eloise-85-suede-ankle-boots-1296963)  
> Eve's [Dragon Kimono](https://solekoi.com/products/red-dragon-kimono-cardigan-shirt?_pos=1&_sid=af42f237e&_ss=r) (obviously longer)  
> Villanelle's [Tiger Kimono](https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4001133074388.html) (in white and obviously longer too)  
> Marion's [Balenciaga Boots](https://www.fwrd.com/product-balenciaga-strike-bootie-l20/BALF-MZ28/?d=Mens)  
> [Omega Watch](https://www.swisswatchexpo.com/watches/omega-constellation-classic-steel-diamond-mens-watch-15043500-28732/)  
> Eve's [Ted Baker Coat](https://www.tedbaker.com/us/Womens/Clothing/Jackets-Coats/ELLGENC-Long-belted-wrap-coat-Black/p/156062-BLACK)  
> Villanelle's [Valentino Bomber Jacket](https://www.valentino.com/en-fi/bomber_cod7789028784629377.html)


	2. What Happened To Her?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Elena and Bear meet their new team member; Villanelle and Marion are briefed on their responsibilities as operatives; Eve and Carolyn travel to the United States to wrangle information out of the CIA but are met with some friction.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More like what happened to the chapter?  
> Sorry for any confusion. A few bits of dialogue were bugging me but I couldn’t get to them right away so I decided to delete the chapter. Might have been an overreaction. I only made a few minor adjustments, the storyline is the same!
> 
> This is a LONG one
> 
> I guess I have a thing for open-concept layouts
> 
> Songs you will need (in order):  
> Why Not (The Vendetta Suite Remix) – Unloved  
> Her – Unloved  
> Tell Mama – Unloved  
> We Are Unloved – Unloved  
> Dance Of The Knights - Sergei Prokofiev  
> Voodoo Voodoo - Étienne Daho  
> I’m Gonna Haunt You – Fabienne Delsol  
> I Could Tell You But I’d Have to Kill – Unloved  
> Tout (sinon rien) – Juniore  
> Obsession – Animotion  
> Xpectations – Unloved  
> [Spotify Playlist: What Happened To Her?](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3GxgDMxaQmXNUY13XH6N17)

**BERLIN**  
Elena and Bear stand in an elevator, their backpacks on their backs. Beside them is an older gentleman in a black suit, his blonde hair combed neatly to the side.

He coughs a bit then clears his throat.

“Pardon.”

Elena stares forward at the doors and Bear fidgets with the straps of his backpack as the elevator descends, the air in the tight space uncomfortable and stiff. The elevator comes to a stop landing on a basement floor.

The doors open to a long concrete corridor, lacking windows. The harsh light from the fluorescent bulbs on the walls reflects off the grey and white tiled linoleum floor, scuffs here and there.

Elena and Bear allow the man to step out first.

“This way,” he says.

[Why Not (The Vendetta Suite Remix) – Unloved]

They along trail along after him, his strides long and quick, their footsteps echoing around the walls.

“I wish someone would have told me Berlin before I started learning Italian,” Elena murmurs over at Bear.

“ _Du sprichst kein Deutsch?_ ” Bear responds.

Elena scrunches her brow not expecting German to come from his mouth, and with a passable accent too.

“What? You do?” she asks in bewilderment.

“ _Ja._ ”

Elena just shakes her head in disbelief.

The man leads them down the hallway taking a left turn, then a right.

“When Carolyn called to request space for your team I was happy to assist. I owe her after she got me out of some trouble in Leningrad. Back in the old days of the USSR,” he chuckles.

Elena and Bear exchange a glance.

The man stops at a door. “This is it.” He knocks a few times then pushes it open, walking inside the small room.

There are four desks positioned against the walls with computers on each of them. One section of wall remains free, a projector hanging from the ceiling pointed at it. Across from this is a makeshift kitchen, a coffee maker set on a folding table with a mini-refrigerator underneath that hums softly. A small flatscreen television monitor hangs from the wall overhead.

A younger man close to Bear and Elena’s age slumps in his office chair lazily, his head hanging in what looks to be an uncomfortable position forward and to the side. His hair is black, buzzed on the sides and long down the middle, the tips vibrant purple.

A cup of coffee sits on the desk in front of him.

“Yannik,” the man in the suit bellows. Yannik startles in his seat. “I didn’t expect you to be here yet,” the older man goes on in German.

Yannik spins in his chair slowly, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes.

They converse in German. 

“You said we had a meeting at eight.”

“Yes, _we_ had a meeting.”

“Oh.” Yannik yawns and stretches out with a groan. “I thought you meant meeting like meeting the new people.”

He grins at Elena and Bear. Elena smiles back politely; Bear cringes.

The man in the suit sighs, “No. I meant a meeting in my office upstairs.”

Yannik stands, “Well we can-“

“No,” the man throws up his hand. “Just…” his lips press into a thin line. He turns to Elena and Bear, gesturing over at Yannik. “This is Yannik, your cyber analyst. Hacker. He can go anywhere on the Internet, get through any sort of security system, decipher any type of password to access, well, whatever he wants.”

Yannik beams and waves, “ _Hallo._ ”

“You’ll have an easier time communicating in English.”

“Oh, uh, hello,” Yannik says, trying to lessen his German accent.

“Hi,” Elena smiles.

“Hello,” Bear waves.

An awkward silence settles around the room.

The older man clears his throat, “Well, I believe you already know your assignments so I’ll let you get settled in. Uh, there’s coffee here, refrigerator, a vending machine on the next floor above. Yannik, help them with anything else they might need.”

“Got it,” he grins.

“Okay,” the man straightens his blazer, “I’ll be heading off then.” He heads for the door but stops in the doorway and turns, his hand on the knob. “Oh, just a reminder. This office, this group, this operation, all of it is strictly confidential and not known by almost everyone else in this building so…don’t muck it up.”

He closes the door on his way out.

Elena and Bear look at each other, then at Yannik.

“Ehm. I’m Elena,” she offers her hand to Yannik who shakes it with a grin.

“Nice to meet you,” he smiles, his heart beating a little faster.

“Uh, Bear.”

Bear and Yannik shake hands.

“Oh, is that like a…how do you call it, a nickname?”

“Yeah. My rugby team started calling me that when I was a kid and it just kind of stuck. Uh, you call it _spitzname_?” Bear tries with a smile.

“So you do speak German,” Yannik grins as he flops back down in his chair.

“He does, I don’t,” Elena says, slinging off her backpack. “Uh…” she looks around at the desks wondering where to get set up.

Yannik sweeps his arm across the room.

“You can pick anywhere you want. All the computers are encrypted and have safe connections to the web. I coded the firewalls myself,” he bounces his brow.

Elena takes the desk to the right of Yannik’s. Bear plops down in the chair to the one on the left.

“Do you want coffee?" Yannik asks. "Or tea? Except I don’t think we have any down here. If they told me you were coming from uh…well where exactly?”

“London,” Bear says.

“Yeah right, London. Then I would have stole a box from the kitchen upstairs.”

“Uh, coffee is fine,” Elena smiles.

Yannik jumps out of his chair to the coffee maker while Bear digs around in his backpack. Elena eyes him.

“How much did they tell you? About us?” she asks casually.

Yannik pours dark coffee into a mug, an FC Bayern Munich logo on the side.

“Not much. Linus, the guy who brought you down here.”

“Yeah we met him,” Bear says as he pulls out a bag of Tangfastics.

“Yeah,” Yannik turns to Elena, “you want sugar in this?”

Elena stares at him, taking in his all-black outfit. “Um. No, that’s fine. Thank you.”

“If you say so. Bear?” He holds up the carafe as Bear tears the bag of candy with his mouth. He pauses.

“Er,” he glances at Elena who grins back at him, “sure.”

Yannik smiles, “Very good.” He pours coffee into another mug as Bear tosses a few gummy bears into his mouth. “You ever try the _Saure Pommes_?” he asks over his shoulder.

“Uh, I didn’t even know they made those,” Bear chews. “They any good?”

Yannik hands Elena her mug with a huge grin, giving Bear the other. 

“They are the best!” he exclaims before falling back into his chair.

He drums his fingers on the side of his mug to some beat only known by him.

Elena stares into the coffee, “Uh, so. How much do you know?”

Yannik takes a long sip, “Oh, right. Linus only told me that I will be working with operatives from another agency but he didn’t say who. Or what agency. Or what we will be working on. But maybe that is what that meeting was going to be about…”

“So, you don’t know anything really?”

“Well I know that I’m helping you with computer access to secured hard drives, servers, files, footage from CCTV, whatever you need," he shrugs. "And I know that there is some organization that might be dangerous or, uh. Yeah that is about all.”

Elena sighs, “Okay, well.”

She sips her coffee, rethinking her decision to continue on with this operation.

“Oh, I’m supposed to teach one of you hacking? Yannik glances between them. "I think."

Bear raises his hand, “Yeah, that would be me.”

“Cool!" Yannik exclaims, his German accent more prominent. "You already know something?”

He scoots his chair over to Bear’s desk.

“Well not much actually," Bear explains. "Just a bit of coding in HTML and Python, how to execute commands mostly.”

Yannik’s shoulders slump, “O…kay. Well. This is alright, it will be good for me to refresh the basics.”

Bear cringes.

Elena rubs her forehead while staring blankly at the floor. She takes a breath then stands, taking control of the room after confirming with herself that neither of those two should even attempt to be in charge.

“Alright, this is how it is then.”

Yannik and Bear look up at her, sensing her authority.

She straightens up, more sure of herself after seeing their lost looks.

“We’re both from MI6. I’ve been working on this operation for about…oh God, a year and a half? That can’t be right.” She does the math in her head then sighs, “Oh God, it is. Uh…Bear’s been helping for about six months then.”

Bear grins, a gummy bear between his teeth.

“We’ve been tracking down members of a very powerful, very dangerous organization that has infiltrated governments and militaries all around the world,” Elena explains with an eye roll, as if she’s said the words a thousand times.

Yannik’s mouth hangs open.

“Oh,” he mumbles.

Bear offers the bag of Tangfastics with a grin.

“It helps.”

Elena clasps her hands looking confident and in charge.

“God, I'm going to sound absolutely mad explaining it from the beginning but, they have trained assassins working for them, quite a few actually and can order hits on anyone they want, anywhere in the world, doesn’t matter,” she shrugs.

Yannik’s eyes double in size.

“Yeah and it really only gets worse,” Elena continues. “There was an operation before this one that targeted the leaders of The Twelve. Oh, that’s what the organization’s called, ‘The Twelve.’ They had twelve leaders so they called themselves The Twelve which is very unoriginal and personally I think they could’ve come up with something better. I’ve thought of a few different names myself. But. Anyways, The Twelve were all executed.”

Yannik’s jaw drops.

“Yeah, I know, very exciting stuff. So now the rest of The Twelve is bloody well pissed off and we get to hunt down their assassins, profile them, then send our assassins to kill their assassins. And their keepers and commanders but that’s an entirely different explanation really.”

“We have assassins?” Yannik asks, his voice almost inaudible.

“We do, they’re both lovely. A real delight to be around,” Elena says sarcastically.

“Um,” Yannik swallows. “This is a lot of information. I was not expecting…”

Bear holds the gummy bears out for him. He takes a handful, popping a few in his mouth, chewing slowly as he thinks.

Elena leans back into the desk, “Yeah. And that’s really only the half of it. But I think I’ll let Eve fill you in on the rest.”

Yannik looks at Elena quizzically, “Who is Eve?”

[Her – Unloved]

**VIRGINIA**  
A customs officer stamps “ADMITTED” on a passport.

“Thank you, Mrs. Watts,” he says as he slides the passport across the counter to Eve.

“It’s Ms.,” Eve corrects as she carelessly shoves the passport back in her purse.

“Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t realize-”

“You should always check for a ring before making an assumption about a woman’s marital status,” Carolyn offers kindly.

The man nods then swallows as he tries to discreetly check if Carolyn is wearing a ring while he assesses her passport. Eve and Carolyn share a glance.

He looks up at her, comparing the photograph on her passport to her standing there in front of him, then he scans it and stamps “ADMITTED.”

“Thank you, Ms. Martens,” he smiles. “Next!”

Eve and Carolyn make their way towards the transportation services area of the airport, pulling their carry-ons alongside them. Carolyn is wearing light grey trousers and a silky cream-colored blouse. Eve in black slacks, a red blouse, and black ankle boots, her purse set on her suitcase. Her curls are tamed back in a low bun.

People redirect their paths to get out of Eve and Carolyn’s way.

Eve yawns wide and stretches her neck side to side with a cringe.

“God, I don’t think I got any sleep.”

“Well you wouldn’t. You don’t normally sleep through the day, do you?”

Eve shoots her a look as they walk out the revolving doors, the sweltering afternoon sun and humidity hitting them instantly. Eve grimaces and squints her eyes against the harsh light.

Carolyn takes a deep breath then sighs it out. “There’s something different about the air here. I can never quite put a finger on it.”

“Stifling?” Eve rolls her eyes.

“No. Rather the opposite.”

“Hotter than hell? I can already feel the sweat dripping off me.”

Carolyn soaks it up as she looks around the area.

“Ah, there’s our ride.”

She strides towards the man dressed in a casual outfit holding a sign that says “Georgetown Ghosts: Murder and Mayhem Tours”

Eve laughs, “Murder and Mayhem Tours?”

“Have you ever been? They’re enlightening.”

\--------

**CIA**  
A young woman wearing a matching pencil skirt and blazer escorts Eve and Carolyn down a hall. They have clearance badges clipped to the front of their shirts. The woman pushes open the cracked door, chatter spills out.

“Here you are,” she smiles.

“Thank you,” Carolyn nods.

Eve gives her a forced pleasant smile.

There are thick folders set in front of five of the ten chairs around the conference table. The three men in the room are all dressed in dark suits.

One is younger than Eve, not by much with dark cropped hair and a trimmed beard. The other two are closer to Carolyn’s age, one bigger around the middle with an abrasive gaze, the other wearing glasses with balding grey hair, much to his dismay.

The men break off their conversation.

“Carolyn Martens,” the man with glasses smiles as he approaches her.

“Doug MacPherson,” Carolyn beams. “My God how long has it been since we last saw each other?”

Eve eyes the other men who eye her back, adjusting their posture. The larger man raises his chin in an air of superiority.

“Oh well, it has to be close to eight years,” Doug laughs.

“Far too long,” Carolyn smiles.

Doug grins at Eve as she extends her hand.

“Eve Polastri,” she smiles politely as they shake.

“Doug MacPherson. Good to meet you. Uh…” Doug glances at the two other men who make their way over for introductions.

The younger dark-haired man runs his hands down the front of his suit jacket before offering one to Eve.

“Carter Thomson. Targeting analyst,” he shakes her hand, his palm warm and damp.

Eve smiles as she assesses him quickly, then shakes hands with the larger man, his grip far more firm than necessary.

“Frederick Murray. Deputy chief of targeting analysis,” he says gruffly, eyes already scrutinizing her.

“Eve Polastri. Senior intelligence operative,” she responds, her voice smooth with confidence, coming up with that title on the spot.

“Hm,” he huffs.

“Gillian will not be joining us today,” Doug announces as everyone decides which seat to take.

“Ah, shame. We could have used her analysis,” Carolyn says as she sits.

Eve slips her purse off her shoulder and sits beside Carolyn on one side of the conference table. Carter sits across from Eve, Frederick across from Carolyn, and Doug at the head of the table. He leans back in his chair and clasps his hands together, resting them on the thick folder on the table.

“Well I think I’ll skip the bullshit and get right to the point. We’ve talked with the DGSE, the CNI, AISE, BND, the SVR, and the GRU and no one is taking responsibility for the mess of a situation in Europe, but they all seem to implicate each other including MI6. So maybe you could tell us what the hell’s been going on over there?”

Frederick narrows his eyes at Eve. She sits up taller and glances at Carolyn who speaks first.

“There are a number of ongoing intelligence operations directed by MI6. Unfortunately I’m not at liberty to discuss the details of all of them with you, but what I-“

“We need to know the full report on Operation Odesa,” Frederick cuts her off, “as well as the identities of the operatives you apparently have at your disposal.”

“How were you able to coordinate twelve assassinations? Without any evidence being left at any of the crime scenes?” Carter asks bluntly.

A brief silence moves in as everyone decides their tactic.

“It was a cooperative effort, involving many of the agencies you’ve already spoken with,” Carolyn responds calmly, giving nothing more.

Frederick grunts in dissatisfaction.

Doug sighs gruffly. “You’ll have to do better than that. This isn’t some minor transgression, Carolyn, this was a well-ordered attack. People noticed, agencies reacted. I have commissioners from The Pentagon breathing down my neck demanding answers so you’re going to need you to give me some,” he demands.

Carter taps a finger on his folder then leans forward, “Who are The Twelve? The Dozen Incorporated?”

Eve presses her lips together to stifle a laugh. She considers how to respond as another silence fills in.

She meets eyes with Carter. “The Twelve are a highly organized crime group interested in influencing political affairs around the world. They ha-”

“We’ve already been able to ascertain that Ms. Polastri,” Frederick barks. “But maybe you could elucidate us on how you and your agency managed to pull off a systematic offensive against such a highly organized group,” he snaps.

Eve holds his harsh gaze.

“There must be someone on the inside giving you intel,” Carter tries.

“If you’re asking us to reveal informants and disclose classified information you must know that we are entirely unable to do so. Especially in such sensitive circumstances,” Carolyn shrugs.

Frederick fumes and shifts around in his seat, the chair creaking under his weight. Carter picks at his nails, frustrated by that response.

Doug grabs the small remote next to his file. “Well,” he states as he turns on the projector. It hums as it starts up.

Villanelle’s prison photograph shines on the projection screen against the wall.

“Oh,” Eve scoffs.

“I’m sorry?” Doug retorts as all eyes jump to Eve, including Carolyn’s.

She can feel their stares penetrating into her but she keeps her composure.

“Oh, well I mean it’s just that that’s an old picture. She doesn’t even look like that anymore.”

Frederick grunts and Doug narrows his eyes at her, watching her closely. He changes to the next slide showing CCTV footage of Villanelle leaving a shop disguised as a delivery person, then different bits of footage of her walking the streets of Barcelona. In one clip she holds shopping bags, in another, she licks an ice cream cone.

“She looks more like this now?” Doug asks, slowly clicking through several slides of stills.

Villanelle in the streets of Timișoara, at a hotel in Scotland, then a train station in Brussels. Last is her in Prague, dressed in a leather trench coat while staring straight into the hotel security camera with a smirk.

Carolyn remains unmoved. Eve sets her jaw.

“She works for you,” Frederick states. It’s not a question.

“Briefly in the past, yes,” Carolyn replies easily.

Carter flips through the many papers in the folder searching furiously for something.

Doug changes the slide to the gory image of Rokes’s body on the hotel bed, his arms tied behind his back, blood drenching the white comforter from the slit in this throat. Frederick huffs and shakes his head, looking away. Carolyn blinks and diverts her gaze momentarily. Eve leans in closer, studying every part of the image. The location and angle of the slice in his throat, the sheer amount of blood, the whip tied around his wrists, the knife stuck in the bedside table.

She suddenly misses Villanelle.

“Andrew Rokes," Frederick states gruffly. "Political affairs analyst. American. Murdered in this hotel room presumably by that woman. Do you take responsibility for that?” he questions roughly.

Carolyn’s posture and poise give nothing away. “MI6 has no reason to target an American analyst,” she shakes her head with a shrug.

“So if it was her but she wasn’t working for you then who was she working for? The Russians? Or Iranians? The Chinese?” Doug follows up, his voice taking on a tetchy tone.

Carter continues to flip through the pages rather noisily. Doug watches him with impatience then clears his throat.

Carter glances up, his finger stuck between papers.

“I’m trying to find the-“

“Oksana Astankova,” Doug interrupts, butchering the pronunciation.

“It’s Oksana,” Eve corrects. “Actually she prefers Villanelle.”

“I’m sorry, would you like to give this presentation?” Frederick challenges her.

“Well I probably could,” Eve shrugs. “I know the most about her. I profiled her and tracked her down, got her to cooperate with us.”

“Mhm,” Frederick grunts.

Carolyn adjusts her clasped hands on the table and shoots Eve a cautionary glance. Carter analyzes her carefully as she stares at Frederick with sharp dark eyes.

Doug clears his throat again trying to regain control of the room.

“Well, this Villa-nelle is an interesting figure. Russian born, trouble getting along at an early age, run-ins with the law, violent behavior which landed her in prison in Moscow after a callous murder where she supposedly died but here she is, alive, and employed by somebody. MI6? The Twelve? The SVR hasn’t claimed her.”

“Well they wouldn’t even if she was theirs,” Carolyn dimisses.

“Goddammit, Carolyn, don’t bullshit us!” Frederick shouts. “How the hell were you able to get a woman like this under your control?”

Doug gives Frederick a reprimanding look as Carolyn takes a deep breath beside Eve.

[Tell Mama – Unloved]

Carter fixes his eyes on Eve as he speaks to her.

“Oksana. Or uh, Villanelle? Is that how you say it?”

“Yes,” Eve nods.

“Right. Villanelle. She displays deviant behavior as a child, attacks classmates, commits arson, has to spend time in a juvenile delinquent facility then somehow manages to get herself into a university but not for long before she brutally murders her language instructor’s husband, her instructor now also dead.”

Eve crosses her legs in the other direction under the table.

Carter continues, “She’s incarcerated again as an adult, gets into a few fights before she tragically dies in prison, except that she doesn’t. She gets picked up by The Twelve and is trained for what? I would say two-ish years, one and a half maybe before she starts working for them for real, completing dozens of kills across Europe.”

Eve’s pupils widen as she holds Carter’s gaze. He grins at her warmly, in an almost sympathetic way.

The rest of the room stills.

He goes on, “And she’s good at her job too, right? Able to sneak in and out of places, targeting important people. Politicians, public figures, intelligence analysts and operatives, never once getting caught. And she’s showy,” he laughs, “punctured femoral, clamping a man’s scrotum during asphyxiation, another castration, bludgeoning, electrocution, sliced carotid leaving weapons and prints behind. Of course prints don’t matter if you’re dead. But I would say that’s a little arrogant don’t you think? And reckless? Inattentive, negligent even? And that’s not what you want to be if you’re a trained killer.”

“Assassin,” Eve corrects without thinking.

“Right. Assassin. Sounds more…socially acceptable,” Carter says leaning back in his chair. “But that’s what she does for a living right? Kills people?”

Eve keeps her dark eyes locked on him, a small smug smile appearing on his face.

“What exactly is MI6’s relationship with her? Why hasn’t she been brought in, detained for questioning?” He leans his elbows on the table, “Or maybe the better question is…what is your relationship with her, Eve?” 

Doug and Frederick watch Eve, holding their breath as they await her reply. She can feel Carolyn’s austere gaze on her.

“She’s a colleague,” Eve says finally. “We have a-“ 

“Goddammit!” Frederick slams a fist on the table, “How were you able to get a psychopathic murdered like her to cooperate?!”

“Oh Jesus,” Eve runs a hand over her head, “she’s not a psychopath.”

Doug throws up a hand, “Well what the hell do you call someone like her then?”

“Intelligent,” Eve states with finality.

Frederick slams both hands on the table and guffaws, “Jesus fucking Christ, Carolyn! This is how you manage your people?!”

“Villanelle is a carefully controlled asset,” Carolyn responds in a steely tone. “Eve is a qualified criminal profiler who-“

“Isn’t employed by MI6!” Frederick bellows.

“What?” Eve scoffs. “You looked up my employment history?”

“We do a background check on all persons coming to HQ,” Carter cuts in. “What’s most interesting about you though is that you’ve actually never been employed by MI6. Only MI5, but you were dismissed a little under two years ago after an incident at a hospital in London where four people ended up dead, including the only witness of the murder of Victor Kedrin. Oh, what was that woman’s name?”

“Kasia,” Eve answers grudgingly. “Molkowska.”

“Right.”

“I hope you’re not thinking of making some sort of accusation,” Carolyn rebukes while giving Doug a stern look.

“Your operative is working off the record, you’ve admitted that Villanelle works for MI6, you’re partly if not fully responsible for twelve assassinations, with ten or more operatives in your back pocket. We know Villanelle isn’t the only trained killer you have on your roster, so what the fuck are we supposed to do with all that, Carolyn?”

“More research,” she shrugs.

“Oh for Christ’s sake!” Frederick roars. “The Russians have been more willing to cooperate!”

“Good for them,” Eve chimes in.

“The Russians are almost always willing to make a trade,” Carolyn shrugs coolly.

Doug rips his glasses off and slams them down in frustration. “This is not just some wiretapping scandal! These are egregious offenses implicating a well-respected intelligence agency in criminal activity and serious wrongdoings. It would be a disaster to uncover MI6’s dealings with The Twelve!”

“Yes, that would be a disaster,” Carolyn responds.

Doug rubs his eyes then replaces his glasses, giving Carolyn a severe scowl.

“God damn your resoluteness, Carolyn. We have no choice but to launch an extensive investigation into your operations, including your engagement with Villanelle and any other suspicious personnel we might find. MI6 has done enough.”

“You can’t be allowed to collude with a crime syndicate, employing assassins and conducting operations you deem necessary for global affairs. You don’t get to decide that on your own, Carolyn,” Frederick spits.

“Many other agencies were conferred with, just not the CIA,” Carolyn states with ease.

Fredrick grunts in complete frustration, “We’re investigating all individuals suspected of being involved in Operation Odesa, thoroughly, no exceptions.”

“Excellent, I’ll be curious to see what you’re able to dig-up.” Carolyn stands and Eve follows suit, then everyone else.

Frederick glares furiously at Eve. “If we decide that the Russian is a threat that can’t be controlled, we’ve been given executive orders to shoot, on sight.”

Eve scoffs a laugh, “Good luck.”

“You know you’re not the only profiler in here, Eve,” Carter interjects. “And with an education in criminal psychology I shouldn’t have to remind you that individuals like Villanelle are impulsive, manipulative, pathological liars lacking in emotional intelligence. She can’t be trusted, especially with sensitive information, no matter how…intimate, of colleagues you might be.”

“You don’t know her like I do,” Eve responds, slinging her bag over her shoulder then heading for the door.

Eve throws the bathroom door open with an irritated grunt then heaves her purse on the counter. She presses her hands against the cool marble, squeezing her shoulder blades together, her body quivering as her fingers tense and slowly claw at the surface.

She stares down at her hands, her veins beginning to bulge as her chest heaves, her breath becoming harder and more rapid. 

[We Are Unloved – Unloved]

She flicks her eyes up at the mirror. Darkness churns in the deep brown circles of her unquiet eyes. She raises her head up to meet her own gaze, setting her jaw as she glares at her reflection, eyes widening. She bares her teeth and bangs her fist against the mirror with a yell. Then again, and again, grunting with each successive hit then opening her hand and smacking the glass with her palm.

Her dark frenzied eyes pierce into her as she desperately hits the mirror wanting it to break but to no avail.

She shouts in frustration.

The glass isn’t breaking.

But she really wants it to.

Needs it to.

In a flash she pulls out her phone, holding it with a vice-like grip as she smashes it into the mirror, breaking the pane of glass. She screams and shatters it further into fragments, the cracks spreading more and more with each hit.

Heavy rage rises up from dark depths within her, a feeling so vicious it consumes her in one easy bite.

She scowls with tears forming in her eyes as she drives the corner of her phone into the mirror over and over again, unrelenting, bits of glass chipping off with each hit.

Her emotions rip through her as the tears fall down her cheeks, Frederick and Carter’s words echoing around her mind.

“Psychopath” “Killer” “Murderer”

“Reckless” “Manipulative” “Impulsive”

She searches her reflection within the fractured pieces, compelled now to continue breaking the glass, putting her free hand up against the mirror to steady herself as she swings her phone. She watches frantically as the cracks creep out farther, inching across the pane like stands of a spider’s web. A crack travels underneath her palm then up and over to the edge of the glass.

The words get louder.

“Psychopath!” “Killer!” “Murderer!”

The bloody image of Villanelle’s kill flashes around behind her eyes.

“Reckless!” “Manipulative!” “Impulsive!”

Eve’s arm fatigues but she fights against it. She wants to shatter the mirror completely now. Has to.

She swings her phone continuing to splinter the glass. The cracks multiply, her reflection becoming distorted as the intact fragments lessen in size. The world falls away from around her as she closes her eyes and screams, overtaken by this dark fury. The words and images whirl around her mind impossibly fast, taking her completely. She smashes the mirror as hard as she can. Broken shards of glass fall off the wall and onto the counter, clanking as they hit the ground. The words grow louder still, the images flashing faster, her mind spinning out of control. She strikes her phone into the mirror one more time before her eyes pop open.

Eve takes an unsteady step back, staring at the destroyed glass, fragments missing, unable to piece together her reflection. She snarls and heaves her phone; it ricochets off the mirror back at her. She ducks out of the way in time for it to clatter to the tile behind her.

She gazes at her destruction, every fiber of her being vibrating, mesmerized by the ruin she created. Her detached eyes fix on the long crack that runs far across the pane away from the epicenter of destruction. She runs her finger along it, her breath trembling as she traces it farther, stepping slowly to follow it as it extends high up the pane. She stares at the chilling almost unrecognizable reflection that looks back at her, the crack splitting across her face.

Her finger mindlessly continues tracing as she gets lost in her gaze, searching for herself deep within her wide pupils but falling farther away at the same time.

She gasps; a splinter pricks her finger.

Eve pauses for a breath as the pain registers in her brain.

She brings her finger to her gaze, captivated by the shard sticking out from her skin. She plucks it out, dropping it without care then draws the blood to her fingertip, transfixed by the bright red that rushes out, catching under her nail. She watches it a second longer before she sticks her finger in her mouth, running her tongue over the cut and sucking away the blood.

The metallic taste draws her back to the present.

She blinks out of the daze, her eyes focusing more on the bathroom as she runs her tongue across her teeth then swallows away the taste. She takes a deep breath, rubbing her thumb against the prick in her finger sending little pleasant bursts of pain through her body.

Eve creases her brow, perplexed by the events that just unfolded. She glances back up at the mirror, almost unsure of what she might see. Her eyes quickly find her phone on the floor behind her, face down.

Her shoulders drop. “Shit,” she exhales.

She retrieves it from the ground, groaning as she examines the broken screen. She lets out a long sigh and runs a hand over her head, staring at the cracked black glass. She hits the power button.

At least the screen still lights up.

She unlocks her phone to the image on her home screen.

Eve had insisted that she and Villanelle do not take pictures of themselves on their new phones, nor should they send any to each other, especially not risqué pictures which Villanelle had clearly wanted to but never explicitly said. She was very careful not to.

Eve’s breath slows as she smiles at the image, relieved to see it. Villanelle with her soft eyes and easy smile, her effortless beauty.

Eve takes a deep breath as worry washes over her. She immediately calls Villanelle.

It goes straight to voicemail.

“Hey, it’s me. Let me know you’re okay? Please. I just…” she sighs into the phone, “just call me when you can okay? Or text me, whatever just, just let me know you’re alright when you get this. Please.” She pauses, not wanting to hang up just yet. She lets out another sigh. “Okay. Um…I’ll see you soon.”

\--------

**VLADIVOSTOK, RUSSIA**  
[Dance Of The Knights - Sergei Prokofiev]  
Mariella drives a black Hyundai through the quiet, still dark early morning, the light from the occasional street lamp flashing across her serious features. She turns up the orchestral music coming through the static on the radio.

She navigates down a narrow street, the dark waters of the sea rippling off to the side. Cranes and cargo containers grow larger in the distance as she approaches the shipping yard. She continues a bit farther, humming with the music, then brings the car to a stop next to a rusty shipping container.

She cuts the engine.

Mariella steps out of the car, leaves the keys in the tailpipe, then flips the collar of her jacket up as she hurries along in the darkness in the direction of the freighter.

The music continues to resound in her head.

She squints in the dark, the stars her only light as she treads towards the ramp leading up to the massive ship, cranes looming in the sky. Her boots thud as she ascends the ramp up to the metal ship deck. She forces the orchestra out of her mind and focuses on her plan, her words.

Mariella steps inside the cabin, slinking around dimly lit corridors until at last, she makes it to her destination. She walks into a small cramped space, the two LED flashlights set on the square table the only source of light casting grim shadows across the faces of those in the room.

There are two men, one with strong square shoulders, a steely expression, and dark hair starting to turn grey at the temples, the other more slender with a long face and dark beady eyes. A woman stands between them, short with jet-black hair and straight eyebrows. A small smile flashes on her lips.

The long-faced man narrows his eyes at Mariella. “You are late,” he spits, an eastern European accent coming through.

“I am a minute early,” Mariella replies without checking her watch. “I go by my time standards, Vedran. Not yours.”

Vedran scowls. The woman next to him shoots him an irritated look then flicks her dark brown eyes at Mariella.

“What do you have? Something good for us to be together?”

Mariella scans their faces then nods, “What I have will be very useful to us, I am sure of this.”

“Hm,” the dark-haired man huffs.

“Have you been able to locate our assets? Or are they still running free?” Mariella asks him with a raised brow.

“Carina is in Santiago. Ozel is…unavailable.” He nods at the other woman, “Urata is responsible for the Tokyo Circle.”

“Huh,” Mariella utters.

Urata gives the man an irked scowl then shifts her gaze to Mariella.

“I sent out handlers, but my assassins are hard to find when they are not in the mood to work.”

“It does not matter what kind of mood they are in, they will go back to work when we want them to,” Vedran growls at her.

“This will not be another meeting where you lose your temper,” the other man speaks up.

“Do not involve yourself, Lesko!” Vedran snaps.

Lesko, the dark-haired man, clenches his fists, cracking his knuckles.

Vedran locks malevolent eyes on Mariella, “Johann was found dead in the trunk of a car, and Geneviève was killed in her home in Luxembourg. Do you know anything about that, Mariella?”

“I know nothing more than you, only that it happened. Which was unfortunate.”

Vedran fumes.

Urata eyes Mariella up and down, “Your favorite assassin returned to the world again?”

Mariella lets out a chuckle, “If you mean Marion then yes, I am aware she is working.”

“Villanelle?” Lesko asks.

“Working too. That is part of what I brought here to discuss.”

“With Polastri, yes?” Lesko inquires.

Vedran interjects before Mariella can reply. “For your comrades in intelligence. Is this not correct, huh?” He glares at her with animosity.

Urata takes a deep breath in an attempt to ease her growing impatience.

Mariella remains unperturbed. “There is another operation being organized, yes,” she says simply.

“And how do we know that you won’t take what we give you here back to them, huh?” Vedran snarls.

“We have already determined her cause is back with us,” Lesko raises his voice.

Vedran scoffs, “I am just supposed to believe that? Without protest?”

“You can take my word or-“

“Take your word?” Vedran roars. “You sabotaged this organization! You are responsible for our collapse and now you are asking us to allow you back, as if you did nothing wrong at all? You changed your mind only, is that it?”

Mariella studies Vedran for a long moment before speaking.

“You can use the intel I bring you or you can try to shoot in the dark. Which would you prefer, Vedran? Because you have not been able to get any information. Without me you would not know anything about what they are planning. If you think I am taking information from here only to bring it to them then you are misinformed and misguided by your own insecurities.”

Urata raises her brows, impressed by Marielle’s jab. Lesko sets his jaw, eyes locked on the furious Vedran whose own eyes are wide with fury.

“You are a traitor and a liar!” Vedran yells. “Lesko and Urata might be mindless enough to trust you but I refuse. I will not stand here and listen to you speak!” He stalks closer to her, hostility emanating from him. Mariella doesn’t flinch. “You are working for them, aren’t you?” he hisses. “You want the rest of The Twelve to fall so you can be the only one left standing at the end, laughing. I know you, Mariella. You are corrupt all the way through.”

“Vedran, enough!” Lesko snaps.

“You want to work with her, Lesko? Huh? Then you will watch it all fall around you. All of it, everything will be destroyed!”

Urata shoots daggers at him, “You have something other to propose?”

“We kill her. Here, now,” Vedran sneers at Urata then flicks his sharp eyes at Mariella.

“Get ahold of yourself,” Lesko warns through clamped teeth.

“She’s a defector! She killed Saverio with a smile on her face! Hélène, Rodavan, Cássio, Amin, they are all dead because of her. And now-”

“The Twelve were corrupt!” Urata joins in, unable to restrain herself. “Rodavan planned a revolt, Cássio about to break his allegiance for the cartel, and Liao involved with the Ministry of State Security!”

Vedran locks his dark eyes on Urata, “So you-“

“Collapse already was coming!” she glares back at him.

“The Twelve were not the noble and just leaders you believed them to be. You are holding on to a delusion if you-”

“A delusion?” Vedran throws up his hands, enraged.

He growls at Mariella, curling his lips to reveal sharp incisors. She doesn’t even blink.

“There will be a resurgence," she states. "Do you want to be a part of it or are you going to get in the way? Because we do not have the time and I do not have the patience for defiance."

Vedran barks a laugh, “This is insane! You are insane, all of you!”

“Vedran!” Urata shouts, trying to pull him out of his rage.

“No!” He stalks up to Mariella, eyes full of contemptuous ferocity. “You can try, Mariella, and Lesko and Urata can even follow you, but I will not let you lead us to our demise. I am not blind like they are.”

Lesko slowly slips his hand under his jacket reaching behind his back. Urata’s eyes dart to him.

Vedran inches closer to Mariella, “You are a fucking snake. I will bury you so far in the ground that-“

Mariella pulls a Sig Sauer from an inner coat pocket and fires two slugs into Vedran’s chest. He drops dead to the floor in an instant.

“ _Jezus Chrystus!_ ” Lesko shouts.

“It was him or me, Lesko. And you were not going to do it!” she raises her voice for the first time.

Lesko grumbles, his fingers squeezing the grip of the pistol in his waistband then releasing.

Urata watches the blood pour from the wounds in Vedran’s chest.

“He would have continued to disrupt. It’s not terrible loss,” she concludes.

She meets Mariella’s steady gaze. Lesko looks to her too.

Mariella stands before them, assuming power. She glances between the two as she takes a breath to steady herself.

“Eve, Polastri, is leading a team out of Berlin.”

“Berlin?” Urata asks.

Mariella nods, “A covert operation trying to track down our remaining assets.”

Urata chuckles at the notion.

“To execute or seize?” Lesko asks.

“They may try to do both depending on who they target and who they send.”

“Hm,” Lesko huffs, his expression suddenly becoming more serious.

Urata eyes Mariella warily with a hint of suspicion, “Carolyn and Adalene, they are-”

“Not a part of this.”

Lesko grunts as he strokes his stubbly beard. Mariella studies each of them.

“All of our assets need to be briefed and prepared for the possibility of attack.” She looks to Urata, “The Tokyo-“

“I will find them myself. It is not acceptable that the handlers are not able to yet.”

“We can lose individuals like Vedran but we cannot afford to lose our assassins. They are far better at executing intricate kills than any of us are anymore and I do not wish to get my hands covered in blood unless it is absolutely necessary.”

They all share a solemn look.

Urata shakes her head, a somber look on her face, “This will be a brawl to a bloody end.”

Mariella lets out a sigh, “We have the resources to rebuild, we just have to eliminate our threats if we want the organization to survive.”

“We will survive,” Lesko states with certainty.

Urata lets out a laugh. “I don’t think the others will be very pleased to hear about this,” she points to Vedran’s body.

Mariella shrugs, “I do not think they will so much care. Vedran was not seen as a friend to many, more of a nuisance.”

Lesko chuckles, “So we are in agreement then? We are mobilizing?”

Urata nods, a grave look on her face.

Mariella slips the Sig Sauer back into her coat, “If we want to come out on top with some of our assassins still alive then this cannot be rushed or done carelessly. We have seen what they are capable of. We must outsmart that.”

Silence takes over as they all ponder and plan. Lesko’s eyes fix on Vedran’s body as Mariella flips her collar up.

“Just to be clear,” Lesko says without looking up, “when we send our assets out for Eve, Villanelle, and Marion, they are to…”

“Kill them,” Mariella orders. “And anyone else they are with.”

\--------

**GÖTEBORG, SWEDEN**  
[Voodoo Voodoo - Étienne Daho]  
Villanelle struts up a flight of stairs to the loading dock of a warehouse, squinting in the late night. She’s wearing jeans and a loose shirt, her hair parted in the center and in a low bun. She slips under one of the heavy garage doors, barely fitting through the crack left open, then scans the large concrete space, eyes locating a set of stairs across the way leading to the second story.

She treads up the stairs, her boots kicking up dust.

Only a few tube lights are turned on upstairs making the space rather difficult to see in. Marion leans against a sturdy pillar, large headphones over her ears. She bounces her head to the beat of the song, closing her eyes and letting the music flow through her. She’s wearing an outfit similar to Villanelle’s, though all in black.

Villanelle slinks up behind her silently, a mischievous grin on her face. Marion lets out a sigh, holding onto the music, swiveling her body with the melody.

Her eyes pop open.

Villanelle knocks the headphones off with a smirk then laughs as Marion whips around.

“Oops,” Villanelle says innocently, smiling with her eyes.

Marion growls and snatches the headphones off the ground then hangs them around her neck.

“Really?” she scowls.

The grin fades from Villanelle’s face as she sizes Marion up, stepping around her slowly, assessing her through narrowed eyes.

Has her hair always been like that?

Marion stands tall, her shoulders back, turning her body as Villanelle works her way around her in a half-circle scrutinizing her, antagonizing her as well.

“I was hoping you died,” Villanelle says finally.

“You would miss me,” Marion smirks.

Villanelle stops and they gaze at each other with dark eyes, not much distance between them. Marion’s neck tics; a few fingers on Villanelle’s hand twitch.

“I got shot, twice, in the stomach and almost died, but, unlucky for you, I did not.”

Dark energy swirls around them almost pulling them closer. They shift their weight, fighting against it.

“I got stabbed in the hip,” Villanelle says excitedly, almost as if she’s showing off.

She points to where the wound once was, just below the waistband of her jeans.

Marion bites the inside of her lip, looking Villanelle up and down.

“Let me see,” she simpers.

Villanelle scoffs, “You wish. Pervert.”

Marion chuckles softly, “How did you kill Hélène?”

Villanelle creases her brow at Marion, wondering if she should say.

“I stabbed her in the eye with a piece of glass then sliced her throat,” she tells Marion indifferently.

Marion lets out an amused laugh and nods her head with a satisfied grin.

Villanelle eyes her, unsure, “How did you know she was my target?”

“Because I know more than you,” Marion gives her a haughty grin. “Do you want to know how I killed Rodavan?”

“Who’s Rodavan?”

“Exactly.” Marion laughs to herself. “I shot him in the face.”

Villanelle lets out a breath and rolls her eyes, “Wooow, how exciting.”

Marion glares at her, anger starting to surge within her. Villanelle slides her hands in her pockets, a smug grin creeping onto her face.

“If you know so much, then who are we meeting?” she shrugs.

Marion clamps her jaw; her lip twitches. She looks off to the side, not wanting to meet Villanelle’s gaze.

“I don’t know,” she admits reluctantly.

“You what?”

“I don’t know,” Marion growls at her through clamped teeth.

“Oh, you don’t know?” Villanelle ridicules.

Marion snarls at her, biting down on her lip trying to contain herself.

“Hm. That is interesting because earlier you-“

Footsteps echo. They snap their heads in the direction of the sound.

Adalene strides in carrying herself with assertive authority. Marion’s body immediately eases, the anger falling away from her.

“ _Quoi?_ ” she breathes out, astonishment sweeping across her features.

Adalene smiles sweetly, “You did not think I would go down that easy, did you?”

Marion lets out a relieved laugh and smiles, creases fleetingly forming on the outside corners of her eyes. Adalene walks up to her and they embrace, Marion wrapping her arms all the way around her.

Villanelle watches them with a scrunched brow, “Do you two know each other or something?”

Adalene pulls away, holding Marion gently by the face.

“Have you been good?” she asks, seriousness in her voice.

Marion grins to one side and nods, almost child-like.

Adalene smiles and strokes her thumb across Marion’s cheek, “ _Bien._ ”

“Uh, did you two used to sleep together or something?” Villanelle tries again, not getting a response to her first question.

Adalene glances over at her as anger swells inside Marion once more. She pulls away from Adalene and stalks over to Villanelle, her eyes vicious.

“Not everything is about sex,” she sneers.

“Really? Because I feel like that is the only vibe I get from you," Villanelle smirks, not at all concerned about the obvious rancor that is being directed at her.

Adalene clears her throat, breaking apart their tension. They face her, though both stealing glances at each other out of the corners of their eyes.

“We have a lot to get through,” Adalene says as she pulls a small projector out of her pocket, no bigger than a cell phone really with a minute flash drive sticking out of the side. Villanelle’s eyes immediately fix on the gadget.

Adalene positions a wooden crate then sets the projector on it. Villanelle snatches it up, flipping it around in her hand, intrigued entirely by the small electronic device.

She looks up at Adalene who watches her with calm eyes.

“What is it?” she inquires, eyes wide with curiosity.

“A projector,” Adalene responds.

Marion rolls her eyes and shakes her head, clenching and releasing her jaw rapidly.

Villanelle admires the projector in her hands, “It’s so small.”

“Yes. That is because it only has the capacity to project, nothing else so it cannot be hacked.”

Villanelle pulls on the flash drive; her eyes flicker when it pops out. “Oh,” she breathes out, excited by this simple feature.

Marion watches her with contempt.

Adalene sighs, “Villanelle, can you please put it down so I may begin?”

“O-kay,” she mouths with big eyes.

She sets down the projector while trying to conceal the flash drive she kept in her hand with her fingers.

“Please, the flash drive as well.”

Villanelle looks away innocently, caught in the act. She sticks the drive back into the side of the projector and sets it down delicately, having to clasps her hands tightly together to keep herself from grabbing it again.

“ _Jésus Christ,_ ” Marion mutters under her breath.

Adalene slips a remote out of her pocket, turning on the projector. It illuminates onto the concrete wall, the square of light crooked from the uneven surface.

“So, as you both are already aware, you will be taking part in Operation Alexandria with the goal of destabilizing The Twelve enough to cause the collapse of the organization.”

She clicks the remote. The blank square changes to a military world map with a blue hue. A red overlay covers the majority of each continent, barring Antarctica.

“The territory under control by The Twelve has diminished considerably.”

She clicks again. The red shrinks on each continent until it only covers the majority of Europe, parts of eastern Asia, and bits and pieces of South America, mostly Brazil and Argentina.

“Current political affairs facilitated their loss of control in Africa and western Asia and the majority of South America is not far behind. Their authority in North America was already limited and not much for concern. That being said, the CIA is suddenly more interested in the activity of The Twelve, more so in the last eight months. We are still unsure as to why, but we must always be cautious with the Americans.”

Villanelle and Marion scoff in agreement.

“Hopefully Carolyn and Eve will be able to extract information. I have a feeling with the two of them, they will be able to get something,” she smiles.

Villanelle perks up a bit from hearing Eve’s name. Marion analyzes the map with a creased brow, her interest in it growing.

“We have complied intelligence from our sources regarding the objective of The Twelve, having to greatly augment your original report,” Adalene looks to Marion.

Marion scoffs, “Unreasonable timeframe.”

“It was a good start,” Adalene smiles, “a good contribution, and with further investigation we have been able to get a sense of their plan of action.”

“Mm, you keep saying ‘we,’” Villanelle butts in, digging for information.

“Yes, that is Carolyn, myself, and several other senior operatives from other intelligence agencies.”

“What agencies?” Marion asks.

Adalene grins with a chuckle, pondering for a moment if she should divulge such information.

She takes a steadying breath, “The AISE, ABIN, CSIS, and Mossad, amongst others.”

“You trust them?” Marion asks, her tone insinuating that Adalene shouldn’t.

Villanelle glances at Adalene, curious how she’ll answer.

“I have known them for many years, worked with them on numerous operations. I know their tendencies, their loyalties. Who they have and have not made trades with. So yes, I do trust them.”

“Can you ever really trust someone? Doing what we do?” Villanelle shrugs.

“I believe you can,” Adalene responds, glancing at Marion. “But perhaps that is a discussion for another time.”

Marion slips her hands in her back pockets.

“So,” she shrugs, “what is it that The Twelve want?”

Adalene lets out a laugh, “The burning question, Marion. The internal structure of The Twelve is set up so that power may still be retained even if leaders are removed. The twelve highest-ranking members you helped execute certainly held the most power, but after their deaths the individuals a rank below, the commanders, took over. It is simply impossible for twelve people to control the affairs of the entire globe. That requires far more individuals.”

She clicks to the next image depicting a ranking system. The commanders at the top, then keepers, handlers, assassins, and informants.

“ _The_ Twelve governed the organization, strategizing where to expand, eliminating threats, voting on targets for assassination, but they were heavily informed by the commanders who have the great responsibility of understanding political and social climates. Handling informants in governments, intelligence agencies, law enforcement, and even militaries. We are coming to understand that The Twelve employ thousands of individuals around the world.”

Marion scoffs impatiently, “So? That does not matter to me.”

“Skip to the more exciting part,” Villanelle urges.

Adalene chuckles, “You both need to appreciate the magnitude of operation of this organization. The Twelve have infiltrated nearly everywhere, expanding their reach for decades, recruiting more people, gathering more resources. They have individuals planted within governments of the most powerful developed nations in the world, ready to execute orders to subvert these countries, ensuring that their people are elected and in control. This is happening around us, right now, on a global scale.”

“Control of the entire world?” Marion snickers.

Villanelle eyes her, “That is impossible.”

“I do not think you are grasping the gravity of this situation, and the stakes of this operation. The Twelve still have the capacity to meet their objective.”

Adalene clicks the remote. The map zooms in on Europe, depicting the borders of each country.

Nearly every one of them is tinted red.

“They are aiming to regain control of Europe, this time with an iron grip then expand outward working harder and faster than before.”

She clicks again. The map zooms back out to a global scale, the red spreading east into Asia, south into Africa, then jumping across the Atlantic and growing in the Americas.

Adalene sighs heavily, giving Villanelle and Marion a solemn look, hoping the weight of this sets in.

They don’t seem to care.

“I imagine that the commanders are spiteful, hostile towards the individuals who facilitated such a hit to their organization. And I imagine they are even more furious with certain assassins who chose to betray them and who are responsible for the deaths of their leaders. Am I being clear enough for the two of you? Your attitude of being untouchable by danger may have been advantageous to you before, but it will not serve you now.”

Villanelle’s eyes darken a shade. Marion glares at Adalene with fire in her eyes.

“I do not like to be so curt, but with you two that is often the only way to get a point across. You have a great deal of responsibility in this operation, executing keepers, assassins, and eventually commanders.”

Villanelle and Marion exchange a glance, shifting on their feet as tension starts to wind its way through them.

Adalene continues, “This is not a job that comes without risk. Their other assassins have been trained like you, speak multiple languages, are skilled with many weapons, and can blend into their surroundings. They have been completing jobs across the world in different countries, different continents, virtually invisible. We are not certain yet how many assassinations they are responsible for, nor are we sure how many are still working for The Twelve. Do not underestimate these individuals. They are trained to kill, just as you.”

Villanelle and Marion cross their arms in unison, notice this, then squirm around, agitated by each other and by Adalene’s lecture.

Adalene clicks the remote, blanking the screen.

“Eve will be leading the strategic planning team, putting together profiles for each of your targets to help you prepare, especially for the assassins and the commanders, when the time comes. Eve is experienced and skilled at this. Trust her, utilize her information,” she locks eyes with Marion, “both of you.”

Marion lip twitches in a snarl; Villanelle grins to the side, puffed up.

Adalene pauses, collecting her thoughts, deciding which direction to take next.

“Hm, you should know that your team is operating as an independent unit. Therefore we cannot help you out of a dire situation.”

Marion rolls her eyes, bored and irritated.

“Where do you come up with the names of the operations?” Villanelle asks with a shrug, starting to grow bored too.

“They are selected from an agreed-upon list, similar to the way tropical storms are named. It is not an exciting process at all I am afraid.”

Adalene recognizes their disconnection and growing lack of interest. She pulls two trinkets out of her pocket.

They both liven up.

“Keepers. Tallinn and Thessaloniki.”

Villanelle snatches the metal helm keychain, “Tallinn” engraved on one side. Adalene hands Marion the miniature White Tower of Thessaloniki.

“You are both qualified for either job.”

“Mm,” Villanelle grabs the small plastic tower from Marion, dropping the helm in her palm.

Marion glares at Villanelle with sheer detestation as she plays with the trinket, happy with her choice.

“I have only a few minutes more before I set you both free. I get the feeling that we are all ready to be done here.”

Adalene clicks to the next slide. Profiles for Villanelle and Marion appear side by side.

“The intel Eve will be receiving to profile your targets will be similar to what is here.”

 **Surname: Astankova**  
**Given name: Oksana**  
**Fathers name: Anatoljevna**  
**Codename: Villanelle**  
DOB: 1993-12-03  
Height: 172.7 cm  
Weight: 62.4 kg  
Hair: Blonde  
Eyes: Hazel  
Place of birth: Perm, Russia  
Recruitment date: 2014-08-20  
Reason for recruitment: Homicide, manslaughter, arson  
Language(s) spoken: English, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Catalan, Portuguese, Russian, Ukrainian  
Training: firearms, hand-to-hand combat, toxic compounds, lock picking, precision driving, counter surveillance  
Territory of operation: Europe

**Surname: Bozhko**  
**Given name: Katyra**  
**Fathers name: Volodymyrivna**  
**Codename: Marion**  
Known alias: Margaux Robillard  
DOB: 1988-05-27  
Height: 174.3 cm  
Weight: 63.7 kg  
Hair: Brown  
Eyes: Brown  
Place of birth: Malyn, Ukraine  
Recruitment date: 2005-02-17  
Reason for recruitment: Triple homicide, assault with a deadly weapon, breaking and entering  
Language(s) spoken: English, French, Spanish, Italian, Romanian, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Russian, Japanese  
Training: firearms, Krav Maga, pickpocketing, lock picking, precision driving, counter surveillance  
Territory of operation: Europe, eastern Asia (Japan)

Marion’s body tenses as her neck tics. A shudder of rage rips through her body, quivering all her muscles.

“That is not my name,” she forces out in a snarl, the timbre of her voice lower than usual.

Villanelle watches her with vigilant and curious eyes.

Marion shoots Adalene a furious and betrayed look, grimacing and groaning as she tries to force away the rage but it’s too intense. She yells and rips off her headphones, heaving them against the wall. Bits of plastic break off.

She strides off in a stormy cloud of fury.

“What was that about?” Villanelle glances at Adalene who powers off the projector, unbothered by Marion’s sudden departure. Villanelle scrunches her brow, taken aback, “Aren’t you going to get her?”

“She has her assignment.”

Adalene pockets the projector, her calm gaze assessing Villanelle’s reaction.

“Yeah, but-“

“If you are concerned about her, Oksana, go and check if she is alright.”

Villanelle scoffs, piqued by hearing her name coming from this woman she met only moments ago. Adalene meets her indignant glare with impassive eyes. She raises a brow.

Villanelle shakes her head vehemently then sets her jaw, turning sharply and marching off in the same direction as Marion.

Marion leans against the wall outside in the dark, her head in her hands, rocking back and forth. She breathes hard as her entire body trembles.

The streetlights in the parking lot light up patches of asphalt. Cars drive by intermittently on the street across the way.

Villanelle comes around the corner ready to crack a joke at Marion’s expense but eases up a bit when she sees her. She treads up slowly. Marion hears her footsteps but doesn’t look up. She grinds her teeth trying to stifle the tears and snuff out the emotions.

“Katyra, huh?” Villanelle asks with raised brows, stepping closer, gauging her carefully.

“Don’t,” Marion growls, her muscles twitching as she fights hard to stay in control.

“You’re not really French?”

Marion shoots up and lurches at Villanelle, forcing her to step back.

“I said don’t,” she snarls.

Villanelle holds her ground.

They stare into the blacks of each other’s devoid eyes.

“What happened to her?” Villanelle asks evenly, inquisitively.

A brief moment of stillness.

Then Marion snaps.

She lunges at Villanelle who jumps back with wide eyes then hits her square in the jaw. Villanelle holds her face and glares at Marion with enmity. She prowls towards her now out for blood.

Marion shoves her. “Huh, Oksana?” she growls. “What happened to you?”

Villanelle punches her across the face, hitting her in the nose. Blood starts to trickle down Marion’s lip as she grabs Villanelle by the shirt and heaves her into the solid concrete wall knocking the breath out of her. Villanelle sucks in air as she locks her ferocious eyes on Marion, calculating an attack.

Marion goes for a hit as Villanelle jabs her in the ribs. She shoves Marion backwards, swinging her fist and aiming for her jaw. Marion surprises her with a hook to the mouth, busting her lip.

They growl at each other, faces bloody, their attention sharply focused on one another.

Neither notice the tall man near the street who watches them with growing concern.

Marion scowls, baring her teeth. Her entire body quakes as she clenches her fists, trying desperately to suppress the rage and regain some control of herself.

A surge of adrenaline courses through Villanelle. She shouts and hits Marion in the ribs catching her off guard then throws her into the metal pipe against the wall hitting her again and splitting her eyebrow. Marion cringes and growls deep in her chest. She blocks Villanelle’s incoming punch then pops her in the nose. Villanelle blinks a few times, wiping away the blood then wiggling her nose to make sure it’s not broken.

Marion glares at her wildly, holding up her fists, not wanting to fight any further but feeling compelled by some dark force to continue.

The tall man approaches them, clearly nervous but trying his best to appear confident.

“ _Hej sluta!_ ” Hey stop!

Neither Villanelle nor Marion hear him.

They lunge at the same time, locking their arms around one another, clawing like lions fighting for dominance, struggling against the other’s strength, throwing jabs here and there, growling and snarling then slamming into the wall in a tangled mess.

The man runs over to them, “ _Sluta! Sluta!_ ” Stop! Stop!

They finally register his voice but neither care. Marion shoves Villanelle off of her and decks her in the cheekbone; Villanelle cracks Marion in the jaw. The dreadful sound of bone hitting bone thunders with each hit.

The man jams his arms between them, separating them before they can launch another attack.

He tries to pull them apart, “ _Sluta snälla!_ ” Stop it please!

Neither budge, both stronger than him.

Marion’s feral eyes dart over to him, another wave of rage flooding through her. She throws his arm away and goes after him, bashing him repeatedly with her knuckles. He cowers trying to protect his head, stumbling back and away.

Villanelle senses Marion spiraling out.

“Hey!” she yells.

Marion pummels the man so hard that he falls to the ground, covering his bloodied and battered face. She grips his shirt to force him back to his feet as Villanelle tackles her down.

They scuffle on the wet asphalt, ruining designer clothes.

“What are you doing?!” Villanelle growls, fighting hard to restrain Marion.

She slips an arm around her throat while trying to wrap her leg around Marion’s.

“Get off me!” Marion thrashes against Villanelle.

The man woozily gets himself up from the ground and staggers away from them almost in a run, teetering on his feet.

Villanelle releases Marion and they both scramble to their feet. Marion fixes her eyes on the man, a strong urge impelling her to chase after him.

Villanelle grabs her arm.

“Look at me!” she yells in Russian.

Marion tries to pull away from her.

“Look at me!” Villanelle growls in Ukrainian.

The words cut into Marion. She wavers on her feet, pulled out of her rage and slowly back to the surface. She turns to Villanelle with frantic eyes.

Villanelle slaps her across the face, hard.

Marion’s mouth falls open as she rubs her cheek, glaring at Villanelle with outrage. Villanelle sets her jaw asserting dominance, forcing Marion to stand down. They leer at each other, blood smudged on their faces and covering their knuckles, dirt ruining their clothes with a rip in one knee of Marion’s jeans and a torn sleeve on Villanelle’s shirt.

Dark energy ripples around them.

They fight against it unable to take their eyes away from each other, a spark of curiosity flickering through them both.

It lingers.

Then they break free from the force.

[I’m Gonna Haunt You – Fabienne Delsol]

Marion’s neck tics then she shakes it all off with a scowl. She brushes off her shirt then her jeans, her eyes trained on Villanelle.

Villanelle slicks back wild loose strands of blonde hair, a shudder running down her body as she readjusts her twisted shirt.

They take slow steps backwards, eyes never leaving each other as they carefully retreat. Marion stumbles over a crack in the pavement; Villanelle steps in a puddle. They draw back, eyes wild, chins held high, unsure if the other will attack again. They swivel their hips in unison, slowly turning their bodies but not yet ready to turn their backs to each other.

They stop in their tracks.

Villanelle stares at Marion, she stares back.

At the same time, they take the final step and turn, striding away from one another.

Marion glances back at Villanelle as she looks over her shoulder. They both growl and pick up their pace, more distance separating them.

Villanelle chances another glance out of curiosity.

Marion peers back one last time.

Then they go their separate ways.

Villanelle pulls the plastic tower out of her pocket, wrapping her fingers around it in a tight fist.

\--------

**WASHINGTON, DC**  
Eve and Carolyn sit at a booth in a grimy run-down bar, rips in the seat cushions, a hodgepodge of décor hanging on the walls. Patrons sitting up at the bar slump over their drinks.

Eve rubs her bloodshot eyes, her scar aching near her shoulder blade. She massages the back of her neck trying to work out the tension as her mind blanks.

Carolyn watches her with intrigue, narrowing her eyes for a moment.

“Still Polastri?” she says, pulling Eve out of her thoughts.

“Huh, what? Uh…” Eve shrugs, “yeah.”

“Hm.”

Eve gives her a look, “What?”

“Nothing, I just find it rather interesting that you’ve elected to keep Polastri despite the fact that…” she trails off, seeming to have forgotten the name.

“Niko.”

“Right, Niko. Is no longer alive.”

Eve sighs, “I mean, I don’t know. I could change it I guess. What did you do?”

“Changed it back each time,” Carolyn nods, “after divorce and death.”

Eve leans back in her seat thinking on this.

“Huh.”

Her scar throbs deeper, radiating out into the rest of her body.

Carolyn glances at the middle-aged man ordering at the bar. Light brown hair, broad shoulders beneath a leather jacket, and just under average height.

“Ah, our company’s just arrived.”

“Yeah who are we even meeting here?”

“Jack Kerr. CIA. He was involved in an undercover operation to locate defectors from the GDR in the late 80s. I thought he was a Stasi officer all the way up until the end.”

“Oh good, sounds like a very trustworthy colleague,” Eve responds as she rests her head in her hand, exhaustion setting in from jet lag.

“Well he’s good at his job, that’s why I stayed in contact with him. He proves to be useful occasionally and we still trade information when possible,” Carolyn laughs to herself.

“God, how many people have you made deals with?”

“Enough to know when someone is being deceptive or if they actually have a decent offer on the table.”

The man walks up to their table with a shifty grin.

“Just ordered a round of old fashioneds.” He smiles at Eve, “I took a guess you’d be alright with that.”

“Sounds great. I could use a drink or two after today,” she chuckles, getting herself to sit up more.

He pulls over a chair from a nearby table then offers his hand to her.

“Jack.”

“Eve,” she forces a smile.

He keeps his eyes on her, holding her hand for a second too long.

“Polastri, right?” he asks as he gets settled in.

Eve lets out a laugh, “Yeah, Polastri. Eve Polastri. Maybe I should say it louder so the whole bar can hear.”

She runs a hand over her head, ready for that drink.

“That’s uh, a Polish name isn’t it?”

Eve sighs, “Yes. My husband was Polish.”

Jack notices Eve’s finger lacks a wedding ring.

“Was?”

Carolyn intervenes, “It’s all good and well to want to get to know each other but I think our time would be better well spent on the issues we came here for.”

Jack chuckles, “Come on, Carolyn. We haven’t even gotten our drinks yet. It’ll be my first of the day.”

“Somehow I doubt that,” she smiles, more with her eyes.

Eve studies Jack, noting his thin gelled hair, the nick on his neck presumably from shaving, and the scar on the outside of his eye.

Carolyn stares at him with an unyielding sternness.

“Alright, alright,” he puts his hands up, “you’re busy women, I get it. A thousand other places you could be right now, that you’d probably rather be.”

Carolyn and Eve exchange a glance as he cracks his neck from side to side.

“I thought I might be able to persuade you to stay for a few but uh, straight to business it is,” he grins.

Irritation spreads its way through Eve.

Where is that damn drink?

Jack leans on one elbow, “Doug and the rest of those pricks are bullshitting you, asking for information they already have, poking and prodding around to see if you’ll own up to any of it. I mean come on, it’s the fucking CIA, of course they what’s been going on, or some of it at least.” He grins at Carolyn, “You do know how to run a solid undercover operation. But what they didn’t tell you-“

He cuts himself off as a frazzled waitress scurries up to their table.

“Sorry for the wait.” She sets nearly overflowing drinks in front of each of them, spilling Eve’s at the end. “Oop, sorry,” she frowns.

“It’s fine,” Eve smiles charmingly, “thank you.”

She takes a hearty drink as Jack knocks half of his off. Carolyn sips.

Eve drinks more, “Jesus, this is strong.”

“Yeah, it’ll do the job quick,” Jack laughs. “So what was I saying? Oh, basically they know the two of you, well MI6 and the other agencies, which by the way they still haven’t worked all of them out yet, uh…coordinated Odesa. But they have no idea how or who was involved. As in the ones actually responsible for the attacks so they haven’t been able to pin anyone down.”

“What do they know about The Twelve?” Eve asks.

“The elusive shadow organization,” Jack chuckles. “Yeah uh, they know more than they led on I’m sure.”

“Well what?” Eve presses.

Carolyn sips on her drink letting the situation play out.

“Uh. Well. They’ve known about the possibility of an organization like that existing since political figures kept turning up dead in Europe, and after the attacks this past spring they started working with other agencies, or trying to at least to get a sense of who these people were. What they were working on, who they were involved with. Which has not been easy because let me tell you any information related to any of this requires top-level clearance to access but, you know,” he shrugs as he takes a drink, “I have access.”

“What else do they know?” Eve asks impatiently.

“Well Ms. Polastri,” he leans closer, “or do you prefer-”

“Really, Eve is fine.”

“Well, Eve, they know about your assassin. They’ve been profiling Astankova for a while now, had to allocate an entire team to it actually since the incident in Prague. And there’s another woman, allegedly with ties to the DGSE but no record of it whatsoever. They’re still working on getting her figured out. Apparently the best way to become an assassin is to die first. Both these women ceased to exist years ago, on paper that is.”

“That’s all they have, about The Twelve’s assets and operations?” Carolyn joins in.

Jack finishes his drink. “No,” he slams his glass on the table. “A global-scale organization like The Twelve can’t operate with only two female assassins. There has to be more of them, right?”

He gives Eve a sly grin.

“I’m assuming that was a rhetorical,” Carolyn says dryly.

“Uh yes, one that didn’t land well apparently.”

Eve takes another drink, shifting restlessly in her seat. Jack reaches into his jacket and pulls out a gift-wrapped box about the size of a standard envelope but thick like two or so decks of playing cards.

He hands it to Eve, “Happy birthday.”

“Oh, uh…” Eve nods with a confused but amused grin, “thank you?”

Carolyn lets out a chuckle, “Thoughtful gesture, Jack.”

“Tensions are high. Have to keep things discreet.”

He looks between the two of them then leans in closer as if he’s about to confide the world’s biggest secret.

“There’s more than just the Russian and the other one in terms of contract killers.” He pauses as he carefully selects his next words, “And there are sleeper agents, plants, in several agencies including my own.”

“That’s what I was afraid you might say,” Carolyn sighs, reacting as if she doesn’t already know this information.

Eve follows Carolyn’s lead.

“Uh, how many agents do you think they have?” she asks with concerned eyes.

Jack pats the box, “It’s all in there.”

“Well, that’ll be fun to open later,” Carolyn smiles at Eve who smiles back, a little too over-the-top perhaps.

They’re putting on a good show.

Jack stares down into his empty glass, his expression emptying as he runs his thumb along the rim.

“An independent organization with the ability to plant their own inside top intelligence agencies is already cause for alarm. But what’s more alarming, unsettling even is what happens to the agents if, when, the organization collapses. Who gets them? Who controls them? These people who have been earning trust and respect, raking in information for the past…fuck, I don’t even know, I can’t even guess how many years. Do you see what I’m saying?”

Someone drops a drink across the bar, breaking the glass on the floor. People grip and groan then someone shouts, drawing everyone’s attention that way for a moment.

“This is a rather serious situation,” Carolyn responds at last, glancing at Eve in a stern way that indicates she should bite her tongue.

“Definitely cause for alarm,” Eve nods with a chuckle, unable to contain it.

“I mean can you imagine if the wrong people got wind of this? Think about if the Russians got a hold of these agents, or the Chinese. Or God for-fucking-bid North Korea.”

Eve leans back in her chair considering the severity of this situation for the first time.

“Jesus,” she mutters.

“It would be a fucking nightmare! Chaos. The start of world war three!” Jack barks through his teeth.

“Hm,” Carolyn utters. “So you believe the safest place for The Twelve’s agents and their intel is in the hands of the CIA?”

Jack scoffs, “Well, yeah I do think that’s the safest option. An undercover, and I’m talking _very_ undercover operation to locate these people and bring them in. Top secret. All of it. Almost nobody would know it even happened.”

“You don’t think MI6 could pull off something like that?” Eve asks, digging in a little.

“Eh,” Jack cringes, “what you guys did what commendable sure, but it was too showy. Attracted too much attention from other agencies. This has to be a CIA-led operation.”

“Hm, this seems like something the SVR would be keen on,” Carolyn notes.

“Yes exactly! That’s my point. We have to get in there first and beat the Russians at their own game.”

Carolyn leans back in her seat, “Espionage is like a fine art in Moscow.”

Eve looks at her trying to figure which way she’s attempting to steer the conversation. Carolyn simply blinks at her.

Eve turns to Jack, “Doug said the SVR was cooperating with you?”

“Well they’re ‘cooperating,’ but come on, what does that really mean you know? Just that we’re not firing nuclear bombs at each other. Or yet at least.”

“You think the SVR is heading their own operation to exfiltrate the sleepers?” Eve asks.

“I can guarantee you anyone who has information on this is trying to do the same exact thing we are.”

A cellphone goes off at their table.

Neither Eve nor Carolyn move.

Jack reaches into his back pocket and pulls out his phone.

“Shit. My kid.” He silences the ringer then stands. “Uh, forty-two’s never looked so good,” he smiles at Eve then locks eyes with Carolyn, “we’ll be in touch?”

“Yes, we shall,” Carolyn smiles. “Hope all is well with Kegan.”

Jack chuckles, “You never forget a detail, Carolyn Martens.”

He grins one last time at Eve, eyes assessing her almost indecently before he heads for the door.

“Well,” Eve tosses back the rest of her drink, “that was interesting.”

“The Americans have been trying to get even with the Russians for years," Carolyn observes before slugging back a good amount of her drink.

Eve throws up her hand with a laugh, “Well this is one way to do it.”

“A grandiose way at that.”

They sit with their thoughts.

A group of people takes shots at the bar, hooting and hollering after.

Eve looks at Carolyn with an edge of seriousness.

“I don’t trust him.”

“Nor do I,” Carolyn shrugs.

“What?” Eve laughs.

“I never said that I did, only that he was good at his job.”

Eve scoffs then shakes her head, resting it in both hands.

“How do you never get lost in your own web of lies?”

“Eve. I’ve been playing this part far longer than you. I have a lifetime of history with people in this field. Mistakes, successes, affairs, trade-offs. There is far more going on than I think you could ever possibly be aware of.”

“Yeah, so I’ve learned.” Eve tries to take a sip of her empty drink. “God, what am I?” she grumbles.

She rubs her eyes with a groan then pulls her hair out of the bun, shaking out her curls and stretching her back before slumping over the table and resting her head on her hand once more, staring down at the sticky table while she organizes her sluggish thoughts.

Carolyn taps her finger on her glass as she scans the bar, having been carefully tracking anyone who looked their way the entire time they’ve been there.

Eve sits up, “So the CIA thinks they can just go out there and get all the sleepers then take them in and tell no one? That they just get to have all the intel? Then act like nothing even happened?”

“The CIA certainly has a different way of approaching things.”

“Yeah it’s called sweep it under the rug,” Eve rolls her eyes.

“Then nail the rug down so nothing can ever be seen again,” Carolyn adds.

Eve laughs, “So how do we get to it then?”

“Burn the rug, exposing everything underneath.”

\-------- [I Could Tell You But I’d Have to Kill – Unloved]

**THESSALONIKI, GREECE**  
Villanelle sits at a small table in the crowded back patio of a restaurant. Strings of white lights hang off the terrace overhead. She’s wearing a Dolce and Gabbana two-tone suit, a bright red regal jacquard woven into crimson lining.

She opted against the blazer in this heat but kept the vest, a silky black dress shirt underneath, the top buttons undone, naturally. Her hair is braided back in three French braids then coiled into a low bun.

The vertical gold bar necklace hangs around her neck.

She takes the last bite of keftethes then licks the sauce off the knife, her voracious appetite filled only after the second plate. Her eyes stay on the man sitting at a large table across the patio, laughing with his group.

She sets her fork gently on her plate, which has practically been wiped clean, then pushes it away from her as she nonchalantly slips the knife up her sleeve handle first, keeping the tip of the blade in her palm.

Her waitress finishes at another table then makes her way over.

She sets the check holder on the table, several high-value notes sticking out the top, a few coins tucked inside.

“Thank you, miss. Your change. You left more than enough.”

Villanelle smiles, exuding charm from her eyes, “Keep it.”

The young woman beams at her, “Oh, thank you so much! It was my pleasure serving you this evening.”

“I liked the food, not you,” Villanelle responds tersely.

The woman’s smile falls from her face as her body slumps.

“Oh, well,” she straightens up, “I’m glad you enjoyed your meal.”

“Just take it and get out of my way,” Villanelle snaps.

The waitress jumps then grabs the holder and scampers off.

Villanelle sighs impatiently and leans back in her chair, watching as the men across the way start to stand and exchange farewells. Her target grins as he shakes hands with a colleague, smacking him on the shoulder in a gesture of comradery then pats another man on the back before they all amble towards the gate.

She observes the other people in the patio casually, not looking for anything in particular while she waits for her target to exit, which apparently he has no intention of doing anytime soon. She runs her middle finger back and forth over the tip of the blade growing restless from the wait. Her eyes land on an Asian woman who looks back at her. The woman quickly diverts her gaze.

Villanelle narrows her eyes at the woman as she stands. She makes her way towards the back gate, her target finally on his way out. She devises her final plan for the job which she is more than ready to complete now.

Cool air ripples across her face as she strides down the back street towards the sidewalk. She stalls for a moment staying in the shadows and out of the way of the glowing sign for the bar next door. She slides her hands in her pockets, appearing to be checking the street signs as her target waves to his colleagues as they jog across the street.

“ _Zdravo!_ ” he shouts at them with a chuckle.

He walks down the sidewalk in the opposite direction of his group, his gait relaxed and leisurely.

Villanelle grins.

She stalks after him keeping a respectable distance as they trek down the pavement, crossing a crosswalk then taking a turn down another busy street.

She follows him past a bustling restaurant, the aroma of grilled meat drifting out, past a closed shop with barred doors, then past a group of young people smoking cigarettes outside a rowdy bar. The entire group looks her up and down as she passes.

Her target turns down a narrower street away from the sights and sounds of the main thoroughfare, no street lamps to light the way.

The darkness of night envelops them.

He whistles a tune as he strolls along, kicking a pebble on the ground. It bounces off a fence post. He smiles.

Villanelle picks up her pace, closing the distance between them with ease. Her palms start to sweat as she approaches him, ears picking up on the tune.

She sneaks up on him soundlessly, like a jaguar sneaking through the jungle.

“Excuse me, sir.”

He startles, surprised by her clear voice right behind him.

“I think you dropped this.”

He turns, “What?”

Villanelle whips her elbow, the handle of the knife sliding into her palm. In one fluid motion, she slices a deep gash in his left carotid then stabs the blade into his right.

His eyes fly open, blood already pouring from the left side. He instinctively pulls out the knife.

Villanelle laughs with elation at his costly mistake.

Blood spews from both sides of his neck, removing the blade only allowing for more blood to pour out from the puncture in his artery. He desperately tries to apply pressure to both sides but fails. Blood spurts through his fingers with each pulse, his panicked heart only quickening the process.

He faces pales and his body shudders. He coughs hoarsely as more and more deep red blood gushes out, true terror in his expression.

Villanelle keeps her frenetic stare locked on him as an unsettling smile appears on her lips, her eyes detached yet exhilarated.

His legs quiver and he collapses to the ground in a heap, his body no longer able to tolerate such a considerable amount of blood loss.

She tilts her head and gazes down at him, waiting for that last bit of life to shrink away inside. His eyes glaze over as his muscles fully relax, blood still trickling out but his heart no longer beating.

Villanelle stretches her body from side to side then yawns.

“Excuse me,” she cringes, taking a big step over him, careful not to let her Bottega Veneta boots land in the expanding puddle.

She slides her hands in her pockets and strides down the sidewalk, slipping away into the night.

\-------- [Tout (sinon rien) – Juniore]

**TALLINN, ESTONIA**  
Marion rolls office chair after office chair out of the way as she stalks towards her target who staggers on his feet at the other end of the office. He nearly falls over, having to brace himself on a desk.

The office is dark, only the glow of computer monitors illuminating the space.

Marion’s eyes search each desk for a more exciting weapon as she fastens the silver watch around her wrist. A Glock sticks out from the back of her pants, blood on the grip.

Scissors.

Staple remover.

Potted plant.

Keyboard.

Headphones cord.

Pencil.

She pauses.

Very sharp pencil.

She glances at her target who slumps on the desk, trying with all his might to summon some shred of strength so he can get away.

She leaves the pencil behind and slinks up to him as he wheezes in air, the white collar of his dress shirt stained red. She grips his tie and rips him up, forcing him to meet her unnerving gaze then shoves him backwards.

He barely stays on his feet, blood running down from the large gashes in his forehead.

“No, no, please,” he begs, cowering and holding up his hands.

Marion’s venomous eyes flicker. She pistol whips him above the eyebrow. He collapses to the floor.

She grips his tie once more, wrapping it around her hand and dragging him back up to his feet, then pulling him along like a panther playing with its prey.

He stumbles, tripping over his own feet, the room spinning around him. She releases him, heaving him in the direction of the tall windows, the city lights behind him.

He frowns and backs away as she advances on him, spinning the pistol by the trigger loop.

“Please,” he cringes, “you have the wrong person.”

“Mm, I don’t think so. But even if I did,” she shrugs, “does not matter to me. I will still kill you.”

“No,” he sobs. “Please, I have family.”

“Family?” Marion laughs. “Family, family…you should not have said that.”

She cocks the gun.

“Please, do not kill me. Please,” he cries, shirking away from her.

She shrugs, “What do you have to offer me then?”

“What?”

“Money?”

“Wh-, I- I-,” he stammers, confused.

“No?” she slinks closer. “Okay. Mm…your watch?”

He frantically nods and grabs his wrist then pulls up his sleeve looking for the watch that is no longer on his wrist.

Marion holds up her arm, a speck of light glimmers off the face of the watch.

“Oh. It looks like I already have it,” she smirks as she reads the time. “It is twenty-two oh eight.”

He grimaces at her, his thoughts in disarray. He stutters trying to come up with something else to offer.

Marion glides up closer.

“Mm, some people offer sex,” she shrugs.

“What?” he breathes out.

“Not with you. No,” she creases her brow with wild eyes. “I know what business you are really in.”

He shakes his head. “I- I do not,” he wheezes in a breath, “here!”

He retrieves his wallet from his back pocket with shaky hands, fumbling around as he tries to pull banknotes out. He throws them at her.

“Here!”

They float around in the air, landing several meters away from her. A mere sum of fifty-five.

Marion lets out a degrading laugh.

“You value yourself at fifty-five euros?”

He frowns, “That is all I have.”

She stalks closer to him, running her tongue across her teeth and biting her lip.

She raises the gun.

He backs away, running into the pane of glass behind him with a thud. He glances down to the ground below then back up at her, trepidation in his eyes.

He shakes his head with a glum expression, hardly able to look at her.

“Please,” he sniffles, “please.”

Marion pauses, the gun still pointed at him.

“Okay,” she shrugs, “sure.”

“What?” he exhales.

Momentary relief.

Marion laughs and fires off half the magazine. Bullets collide with the glass producing an ear-piercing sound.

The clangor finally subsides.

He quivers terribly but remains standing. He pats himself down quickly, checking his body for bullet holes but finding none.

Marion fires one more bullet; the pane of glass shatters behind him.

His eyes grow wide with absolute horror.

Marion chuckles, “I lied.”

She strides at him with a wicked grin.

“No, no-“

She kicks him in the sternum, sending him plummeting to his demise. He splats on the asphalt seven stories below.

Marion releases a held breath, the air rushing out of her lungs. She looks off to the side with a furrowed brow, a deeply confused look on her face, then concern.

She stands there a moment, waiting, then waiting some more. She flicks on the safety and scratches her head with the muzzle of the gun.

She sighs disappointedly, drooping her shoulders.

Then her eyes alight.

Marion takes a step closer to the edge, broken glass on the ground, jagged shards sticking out of the pane around her.

She looks down then gasps, her heart beating harder and faster in her chest. Her breath shakes as her eyes take in the drop. She clenches her fist, sweat dampening her palm and the rest of her body. Some primal urge deep within her impels her to jump. She sways slightly on her feet.

Cold air rushes around her, touching her face and exposed skin.

Marion places her hand on her heart, feeling it pounding against her ribs, hearing it echo in her ears. She swallows and stares down below, holding on to this rush of sensation for as long as her body will allow.

Her knee buckles and she lurches forward. Adrenaline shoots through her prompting her to stumble back and away from the ledge.

She tries to swallow but her mouth is dry.

Sirens go off in the distance.

She drops her hand from her chest, not realizing her fingers had been clutching at it then steadies her breathing, her eyes jumping about as she tries to grapple with this feeling.

Her mind short-circuits, unable to comprehend.

She flips the gun in her hand then slips it back in her waistband and heads for the exit, her red tread Bottega Venetas crunching on the broken glass.

\--------

**BERLIN**  
[Obsession – Animotion]  
Eve enthusiastically chops carrots in the kitchen, getting a start on dinner. She takes a sip of wine, twirling the large chef’s knife in her hand.

She turns up the 80s song playing on the surround sound speakers, humming along with it and dancing to the beat.

Her hair is in a wild high bun, loose curls sticking out and she’s wearing joggers with a tank.

Their new flat has an open layout, modern, the kitchen and living room all one space off the hallway coming from the front door. Large pane windows look out to neighboring buildings, the sun now lowering on the horizon.

There’s a large island in the kitchen where Eve chops, a dual range behind her. Across the kitchen is the living room, dark-upholstered couches positioned around a fireplace with a TV mounted above.

The orange light coming through the curtains creates a soft glow, making the space feel intimate and warm.

The front door opens.

Eve doesn’t even bother to look up.

“In here,” she calls cheerily. “I’m making dinner!”

Villanelle strides inside, dark energy radiating off of her. It hits Eve like a tidal wave as soon as she rounds the corner into the kitchen.

Eve turns down the music on her phone.

Villanelle looks around, taking in the layout, scrutinizing the furniture and décor. She catches a whiff of whatever is simmering on the stove.

Eve wields the knife, carefully watching her. She can tell just by her rigid stance and her hard expression that she’s in a short-fused mood.

“What do you think?” Eve chances, trying to keep her tone light.

Villanelle turns to her, her eyes cold and detached.

“Why didn’t you lock the door?” she asks in an accusatory way.

Eve creases her brow, setting down the knife.

“I was waiting for you to come home,” she defends herself.

Villanelle scoffs. “God Eve, you can’t leave it unlocked when I am not here,” she almost yells.

Eve raises her brows at Villanelle, not appreciating her tone at all.

Villanelle’s gaze cuts into her, “You don’t know how to defend yourself.”

Eve stands up straighter, her dark eyes sharpen, “I don’t know how to defend myself?”

“No,” Villanelle slinks closer, her glare icy. “You don’t.”

Eve lets out a laugh in disbelief.

“Really?” she retorts, her voice flat.

Her fingers find the handle of the knife. Villanelle’s eyes dart to it then back at her.

“Really.”

She prowls closer to Eve, eyeing her hungrily, darkness emanating from her. For what reason Eve does not know.

She grips the knife a little tighter.

“You only know how to use a gun. But what happens when someone takes it from you, hm?”

Water boils over on the stove, sizzling as the flames jump up from the burner.

Villanelle scoffs a laugh almost in contempt before she turns and disappears down the hall hoping to find the bathroom.

Eve lets her go, gazing off as she wonders what is bringing out this side of Villanelle. She looks down at her hand, surprised by how fiercely she grips the knife. She loosens her hold, her shoulders drop.

Villanelle locates the bathroom, not even bothering to give it a look over. She turns on the shower handle. The water sputters a few times before it starts to flow out of the showerhead.

She runs a hand over her head in frustration.

“Eve!” she shouts, her voice deep.

Eve turns off the burners.

“What?!” she yells back, anger now brewing in her.

She treads towards the bathroom, the music in the kitchen fading some.

“No, it’s fine! I’ll just take a shower with shitty water pressure!” Villanelle yells.

She undresses heatedly, throwing her clothes into a heap on the floor without care then pulling her blonde hair out of the bun. She falls back against the wall, cringing as she fights against suddenly overwhelming frustration. Tears come to her eyes. She cannot stop them.

Eve listens on the other side of the door, sensing the shift in Villanelle.

She knocks, “Are you okay?”

Villanelle leans her head back, sniffling away the emotions.

Eve reaches for the doorknob, “I’m coming in.”

“No, Eve,” Villanelle growls through tears.

Eve opens the door halfway before Villanelle throws her arm up against it, preventing it from opening any farther. Their eyes meet in the mirror and for an instant Eve can see the torment swirling in Villanelle’s eyes before black rage flows in.

Villanelle drops her arm. Eve steps inside, wary of these sudden shifts in Villanelle’s temper.

Villanelle grabs Eve by the hips and pushes her up against the wall. She kisses her hard, jamming her tongue in Eve’s mouth.

“Take off your clothes,” she instructs. “Get in.”

Eve presses her body into Villanelle’s.

“Yeah?” she breathes onto her lips.

She shoves Villanelle into the counter, rougher than intended.

“That’s what you want?”

Villanelle lusts after her as darkness overtakes them both. She slips her hands under Eve’s tank; Eve quickly rips it off.

She glides her hands across Eve’s body then slips them under the back of her joggers. Eve kisses her wildly as Villanelle pulls their hips together then throws Eve back up against the wall, not being gentle whatsoever.

Steam from the water rises into the air.

She works Eve’s pants off of her hips, sucking on her neck, then pulls them down her legs in one smooth move. She grazes her fingers up Eve’s thigh, biting her lower lip, her body filling with an insatiable desire that can only be appeased in one of two ways.

Eve’s hand finds Villanelle’s throat as she pulls their lips back together. She forces her tongue inside Villanelle’s mouth, pushing herself off the wall.

They slowly make their way towards the shower, fingers clawing at each other’s skin.

Villanelle bites Eve’s lip, pulling it between her teeth.

She can’t take it anymore.

She leans away with a savage grin then shoves Eve towards the shower door; Eve stumbles inside.

The steaming hot water is almost unbearable as it hits them, dripping down their bodies, goosebumps raising on their skin.

Eve wraps her arms around Villanelle, holding their bodies together as they kiss fervently under the cascading water. They lean into each other, going back and forth, fighting for control, hitting teeth as they consume one another.

Eve can feel Villanelle’s body tensing against hers, her own vibrating at high a frequency, all their nerve endings lighting up.

They devour each other, pressed up against one another, hip bones digging in.

Villanelle slips her hand between their wet bodies, letting it glide between Eve’s legs. Eve can’t help but quiver under Villanelle’s touch.

Villanelle grins impishly knowing she won this battle. She works her fingers faster.

Eve lets out a breathy sigh.

[Xpectations – Unloved]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My fantasy has also turned to madness, and all my goodness to badness
> 
> The Murder and Mayhem Ghost Tours are a real thing!
> 
> Introducing new characters is so hard - I hope it wasn’t too overwhelming
> 
> If you made it this far – a sincere thank you for taking the time to read my fics!
> 
> Feedback is always welcome
> 
> (Sorry for the chapter re-post. It hopefully won’t happen again!)
> 
> Outfits:  
> Villanelle’s [Dolce & Gabbana Suit](https://www.shopstyle.com/g/men/dolce-gabbana/three-piece-jacquard-suit/828171283) (which was impossible to describe but can you imagine her wearing that?! OMG)  
> Villanelle’s [Bottega Veneta Boots](https://www.saksfifthavenue.com/product/bottega-veneta-lug-leather-chelsea-boots-0400012821995.html?dwvar_0400012821995_color=BLACK)  
> Marion’s [Bottega Veneta Boots](https://www.saksfifthavenue.com/product/bottega-veneta-tire-leather-chelsea-boots-0400012589641.html?dwvar_0400012589641_color=BLACK%20TRANSPARENT) (red treads)


	3. I Wouldn't Know

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Carolyn meets with an old colleague and receives some significant information; Eve secures intel and begins profiling the next targets; Villanelle is confronted with her past and slips farther into darkness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m SO sorry it took so long to get this chapter up. There is still so much more amazing content left to come! The next chapter has some of my favorite moments so stay tuned! I’ll be able to get new chapters up a bit quicker now.
> 
> Songs you will need (in order):  
> After Dinner – Unloved  
> Minor Swing – Django Reinhardt & Stephane Grappelli & Quintette du Hot Club France  
> Her – Unloved  
> Crash Boom Bang – Unloved  
> Mas Que Nada – Sergio Mendes & Brasil ‘66  
> If – Unloved  
> Sombre – Unloved  
> Danger – Unloved  
> Strange Effect – Unloved  
> Unloved Heart – Unloved  
> The Darkside – The Limiñanas  
> La La La – Unloved  
> Cry Baby Cry – Unloved  
> Xpectations – Unloved  
> [Spotify Playlist: I Wouldn't Know](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3hjTppU2kcO2Y8uUV6iLTb?si=82v2UwlxT6mJHcsC1G5KtA)

**BERLIN**  
Eve strides down the long concrete corridor, curls tamed and pulled back, dressed in simple business casual attire, her ability to quickly put together more tasteful outfits improving considerably, mostly due to the occasional praise amidst the more frequent ridicule from Villanelle. She checks a crumpled piece of paper for the directions, pausing in the middle of the hall and counting each of the doors on the left, her lips moving as she numbers them off in her head.

She stands there, unsure which to choose, glancing back and forth between two doors. She takes a chance and opens the first door to find several people all dressed in suits conversing as they stare up at a global map with black pins stuck in various locations. A woman turns sharply upon hearing the door and gives Eve a wide-eyed look of shock.

“Oh God. Uh, sorry, sorry,” Eve stammers as she shuts the door and makes a swift exit.

[After Dinner – Unloved]

Eve ponders on the map for a moment trying to guess what the pins were markers for, a curious grin on her face. She treads down to the next door, this one ajar, and pushes it open. Her smile widens as soon as she sees Elena clicking away at her computer.

Elena spins in her chair. “You made it,” she grins at Eve.

“I accidentally barged in on the office down the hall,” Eve laughs as she slips off her purse. “This is the hardest place to find.”

“Yeah, that’s because technically we don’t exist.”

Eve scans the room as she mindlessly walks to the empty desk to the right of Elena.

“God, what is this? A closet?” She gestures at the walls, “Not even a single window?”

“Well we are in a basement after all.”

Eve plops down next to Elena with a smile and they share a look of excitement, eyes bright.

“So, how does it feel to be away from Villanelle?” Elena asks then notices the faint purple splotches on Eve’s neck. “I take it you two are still getting along alright?” she raises a brow with a smug grin.

Eve rolls her eyes and rubs her neck, “Is it that bad?”

“I won’t lie to you, Eve, it’s not great.”

Eve scoffs a laugh and falls back in her chair as Bear ambles inside, grinning wide seeing Eve there.

“Hi-ya, Eve. Was wondering when you’d finally show up.” 

Eve lets out a chuckle, “Nice to see you too.”

Bear pulls his backpack off his shoulders and takes a seat at his desk, swiveling in his chair to face them.

“Yeah how’d that all go by the way?” Elena asks.

“Oh God, it was terrible,” Eve replies. “You would’ve hated it.” She rubs her neck more, hoping some redness might obscure the hickey left from Villanelle the night prior.

“You know I was terrified to confront Carolyn but I did not want to go, at all,” Elena says, flashing her eyes.

Eve chuckles as Bear opens the box of Choco Krispies on his desk.

“Did you get anything good from the CIA?” he asks.

“Oh, yeah,” Eve reaches for her purse then pauses and looks back at him, “uh, no offense, but, why are you here?”

Bear munches on a handful of cereal. “Already knew too much,” he responds without batting an eye. “And Yannik is training me with computers so I can be more useful later on, with MI6 maybe.”

“Huh,” Eve mutters then turns and rummages through her purse as Yannik comes through the door, his eyes first going to Elena then noticing the unfamiliar woman sitting at the desk next to her.

“Oh, this is?”

“Eve,” Elena answers for her, Eve still digging around her purse.

Eve pulls out a stack of photographs held together by a binder clip.

“Polastri?” Yannik inquires.

Eve scoffs, “Yes, Polastri. Why does everyone feel like they have to keep using my full name?”

“Something wrong with it?” Elena asks.

“It’s not like I go around calling you Elena Felton,” Eve waves the stack at her.

“Well I’d hope you would in a professional setting,” she remarks, giving Eve a playful smirk.

Eve rolls her eyes and shakes her head.

“You miss me?” Elena grins.

“Hardly at all,” Eve retorts with a smile.

Yannik pours himself a cup of coffee in the small kitchen.

“You want coffee, Eve?”

“Uh,” Eve shrugs, “yeah sure.”

Yannik grabs another mug with a smile.

“You like cream or sugar? Elena only takes sugar in hers.”

Eve grins over at Elena with raised brows, a look of utter amusement on her face at the fact that Yannik knows how she takes her coffee. Elena rolls her eyes, her nostrils flared in frustration.

“Eve?” Yannik asks again.

“Uh, cream and sugar,” Eve answers distractedly, smiling at Elena expectantly.

“I don’t, I just,” Elena fumbles for words shaking her head, “don’t even know where to start.”

Yannik hands Eve a mug with a big grin.

“Thank you, uh-”

“Yannik,” he says then flops in his chair.

The mini-refrigerator hums as they all glance around at each other wondering who will talk first, the energy of the room different with Eve there.

Elena and Eve speak at the same time.

“Ehm.”

“So.”

“Uh…” Eve creases her brow at Elena.

“Well,” Elena stares back, unsure of the chain of command.

Bear and Yannik watch them, snacking on cereal and sipping coffee.

Eve goes to speak, “I mean if you-“

“No it’s just-“

“Already-“

“I’ve outlined-“

“Uh.”

“Well...” Elena takes a breath. “I already went through the intel we had from MI6 and the AISE and compiled profiles for the next targets. Both keepers. The last keepers actually.”

“For the assassins?” Yannik asks over his coffee mug.

“Yes, for the assassins,” Elena flashes her eyes at him with a mischievous grin.

“Your assassin,” Bear nods at Eve.

“ _Our_ assassin,” she corrects, giving him a stern look then covering her neck with her hand.

Bear shrugs, “Well she is your-“

“Okay,” she cuts him off then looks to Elena. “So what next? How do we get them the profiles?”

“Well we have to send it with-“

Someone silently slips through the door, standing there for a fraction of a second before anyone notices.

Eve’s eyes darken upon seeing Marion.

“ _Bonjour_ , Eve,” she smirks as she slinks closer.

“What are you doing here?” Eve asks through her teeth.

“Just came to pick up my assignment,” Marion shrugs innocently.

Bear’s wide eyes fix on her. “Is, is that,” he stutters.

Marion smiles at him, her eyes exuding charm but filled with frigidness.

“God,” Elena scoffs, “you were supposed to meet Jana at the Fernsehturm.”

Marion shrugs as she leans against her desk.

“I wanted to come say hi to you,” she says then flicks her dark eyes at Eve, “And to Eve.” She smirks, biting the inside of her lip, her eyes finding the mark on Eve’s neck.

“How the hell did you even get down here?” Eve demands.

Marion slinks over to her desk and hops on top, crossing her legs gracefully and leaning closer.

“You need to work on your surveillance skills, Eve,” she says in an almost flirtatious way, running her foot up Eve’s leg.

Eve jerks away, “God, don’t fucking-”

“Here!” Elena interrupts their tension, Bear and Yannik’s wide eyes fixed on the two women.

She holds up a metal keychain in the shape of Kazakhstan, “Қазақстан Республикасы” on one side, a barcode on the other. Marion keeps her dark eyes locked on Eve’s then slides her gaze to the mark on Eve’s neck, snickering and reaching her hand over for the keychain without looking at Elena.

Elena drops the small metal trinket in her hand.

“Merci,” Marion says without taking her eyes off Eve.

The room suddenly feels a few degrees warmer as everyone watches Eve and Marion, waiting for something to happen, almost hoping that it might.

Marion slips her finger through the keyring then leans over and pecks Eve on the cheek before she can try to pull away.

“ _Dis-lui que je dis bonjour_ ,” she whispers in Eve’s ear then jumps off her desk.

Eve’s eyes blacken as she sets her jaw, glaring at Marion with contempt as she winks over at Elena then twirls the keychain around her finger and slips out the door.

“Is that one your girlfriend?” Yannik asks with naïve curiosity.

“No,” Eve jumps out of her chair, “ _She_ is not my anything!”

“Oh,” Yannik slumps, “sorry.”

Eve throws the door shut then runs her hand over her head, pulling the hair tie out of her curls and letting them fall wildly around her shoulders, still feeling where Marion’s lips touched her cheek.

Bear mumbles over to Yannik, “Villanelle is Eve’s-“

Eve spins. “How much did you tell him?” she glares at Bear then Elena, her brow furrowed in a furious scowl.

Elena tracks her carefully, deciding on a casual approach.

“He kept asking questions and was bound to find out eventually,” she shrugs. “Plus this is all confidential anyways, no information ever leaves this room.”

“God,” Eve shakes her head. “My relationship with Villanelle does not need to be discussed by anyone here, ever,” she says with a wave of her hand like the discussion should end there forever.

“Sorry,” Bear mumbles as Yannik nods with apprehensive eyes.

Eve falls in her chair with a huff then rests her head in her hand, rubbing the tension out of her forehead as Elena shoots Bear a look of admonishment. He cringes and shrinks in his seat.

“So the CIA?” Elena asks, trying to get Eve back on track.

Eve tosses the clipped-together stack of polaroids on Elena’s desk.

“And there was a thumb drive but Carolyn somehow ended up with it.”

Elena thumbs through the black and whites of Villanelle in Barcelona, Timișoara, Scotland, and Brussels.

“I need to know _exactly_ how long they’ve been tracking her,” Eve says looking keenly at Elena.

Elena holds up a photo of Villanelle and Eve together on a street in London.

“How long they’ve been tracking you.”

[Minor Swing – Django Reinhardt & Stephane Grappelli & Quintette du Hot Club France]

**GRANADA**  
Chatter echoes as people crowd in the outdoor market, ambling along and browsing the wide variety of items on display at the stands. Fruterías with oranges, bananas, apricots, and cherries, peppers, cucumber, onions, and leafy greens. A stall full of colorful textiles hanging from above, elaborate patterns woven into the fabric. A curios shop, trinkets set out on small tables, catching the eyes of children.

Carolyn glides into the scene, the sun shining high in the sky. She winds her way further in, hidden amongst the crowd of locals and tourists as she strides through the market, eyeing items here and there. A scarf display catches her attention, particularly a silk one of bright red and orange. She pulls it off the hanger then slides a €10 note under the fedora on the table, the shopkeeper busy with another customer. He nods at her and she disappears back into the crowd.

She wraps the scarf loosely around her neck, coolly slipping her hands in her pockets and strolling through the sea of people, weaving around groups of friends clustered together and children running around without a care in the world. Her eyes scan the stalls to her left, stopping on the tall woman admiring golden rings with gems of deep reds and blues set in the bands.

The woman speaks something to the shopkeeper then turns and trails after Carolyn, arriving at her side after a bit a creative navigating.

“Lovely day,” Adalene observes with a smile.

Carolyn grins, “Devine.”

They continue walking through the market, never once looking at each other.

“How is Frederick?” Adalene asks.

“Displeased,” Carolyn replies simply.

“Hostile?”

“A bit.”

“A threat?”

“Hardly,” Carolyn dismisses as a man darts between them. They separate, allowing him to easily pass giving the impression they’re not walking together.

“And you?” she inquires.

“A threat?” Adalene responds with a grin, knowing full well that was not what Carolyn was after.

Carolyn smiles at the repartee. “Are you?” she asks, implying Adalene might be.

“No more than you,” Adalene returns with a playful smirk.

She leans out of the way of a group of young girls, brushing up against Carolyn. Their eyes meet for an instant then they return to the appearance being of total strangers to one another.

“And Marion?” Carolyn asks somewhat uninterested, eyes on the sausage links hanging from hooks in the carnicería.

“As anticipated.”

“Impulsive?”

“Innately.”

“Volatile?”

“Reactive.”

“Stable?”

“Enough.”

The crack pops of small fireworks draw their attention towards a group of teenagers throwing Garbanzo beans at the ground.

“For now,” Adalene follows up.

They both turn right down a narrower path between rows of stalls tightly packed together, breaking apart once more, Carolyn trailing Adalene as they pass a blown glass display.

After a moment, Carolyn arrives at Adalene’s other side.

“Villanelle?” she asks, her eyes on an ornate mask, resembling those of Venice.

“Antagonistic.”

“Responsive?”

“If provoked.”

“Escalation?”

“Some.”

“An altercation?” Carolyn inquires with a subtly raised brow and small smile.

“One. Explosive, but,” Adalene pauses searching for the right word, “contained.”

Neither speaks as they wind deeper into the market, the heat of the sun growing hotter in the cramped space, sweat dampening clothes and glistening on the brows of the people they pass.

“Cooperation?” Carolyn asks finally.

“If fate allows.”

They split apart and each browse at a stand on opposite sides, Carolyn looking at butterfly knives and Adalene gold jewelry. Adalene buys a simple necklace before she strides back the way they came, Carolyn following her at a distance.

She pauses and glances over her shoulder with an impish smirk then turns right down an even narrower alley, inviting Carolyn to a quick game of cat and mouse. Carolyn grins, up for the challenge. She turns down the path to her right.

They walk parallel to one another, stalls between their paths, stealing glances through the large pots and vases of a pottery shop, then jackets and chaps of a leather maker, losing contact momentarily then regaining it as they lock eyes through a sword shop, long blades shining in silver.

Adalene turns down the larger path towards Carolyn, directing her gaze forward, composed and indifferent. Carolyn decides to give her a run for her money. She turns and walks towards Adalene, right in her direction, forcing her to step aside at the last second.

She doubles back and after some crafty trailing she ends up on the main path next to Adalene again.

“A necklace?” is all she says after their game of pursuit.

Adalene bites her lip to stop herself from laughing then seriousness sweeps over her face.

“Ma fille.” My daughter.

Carolyn’s eyes grow distant and fill with ice, the playfulness gone in an instant.

Adalene hastily redirects the dialogue back to business.

“Polastri?” she asks, her French accent curling around the surname.

“Defensive,” Carolyn replies sharply.

“Focused?”

“Hyper.”

“Rational?”

“Mostly,” Carolyn answers, losing patience now for this exchange.

“You?” Adalene asks, catching her off guard.

Carolyn pauses to reflect. “Steady,” she responds indifferently.

Adalene has to stop herself from glancing over.

“Arrangements?” Carolyn asks before Adalene can question her further.

“Confirmed,” Adalene nods.

They walk side-by-side in silence, approaching the exit on the other end of the market. Carolyn notices in her periphery a man in cargo pants and a tight-fitting shirt, matching their pace, following them for the majority of their trek even through the narrower part of the market.

“Three o’clock,” she states unconcerned, more of an observation than a warning.

“Mine,” Adalene replies. “Seven o’clock?” she asks, referencing the woman with the colorful head scarf and tall boots.

“Mine,” Carolyn grins. “Eleven?”

Adalene smiles, “You are bluffing, agent.”

Carolyn smirks wider, “Ready?”

“Prêt.”

At the same time, they each pull a flash drive out of their pockets and exchange them in an almost undetectable hand-off then break apart and go their separate ways without another word.

\-------- [Her – Unloved]

**BERLIN**  
Villanelle strolls through a park, the grass and leaves of the trees a luscious green, brilliantly-colored flowers blooming. A few strands of blonde hair escape her bun and hang by her face, her eyes closer to hazel as the sunlight catches them. She slides her hands in her pockets, the warm rays kissing her exposed arms and legs.

A woman with hair blonder than hers sits on the bench up ahead, making eye contact with Villanelle for an instant then standing and walking away leisurely. Villanelle raises a brow, intrigued by this new way of receiving information.  
She takes the woman’s seat on the bench, leaning back and crossing her legs in a casual manner, easygoing, relaxed, as if she was actually enjoying a nice day in the park.

Two finches land on the grass in front of her, pecking at the ground looking for a source of food. She keeps her eyes on them as she bends down and pretends to fix her shoelaces, searching beneath the bench for anything out of the ordinary.

A Reichsmark is stuck to the cement, “Reichspfennig 10” on the face of the coin.

“Huh,” she narrows her eyes. “Interesting.”

She digs her nail under the edge of the coin and pries it off, flipping it in her fingers to reveal the same symbolling on the other side, atypical for this coin. She shoves it into one of her Timberlands before sitting up and stretching out her back, a fleeting feeling of contentment making her grin, the sun warm on her skin as she squints her eyes against it.

She inhales it, the sweetness of a carefree sunny day, her grin growing. 

Then she yells at the birds and they fly off, their wings flapping as they escape danger.

\--------

**ASTANA, KAZAKHSTAN**  
Marion prowls through the city streets, eyes locked on a stocky man a good eight meters ahead of her. The collar of her jacket is upturned, the heels of her Balenciaga boots taller than usual, and her ringed fingers twitch by her side, eager to pull the curved karambit knife from her hip. She follows her target past a boutique with clothes hanging in the windows then a smoke shop with elaborate hookah bases and hoses on display towards a busier section of downtown.

Dusk makes visibility difficult, the light unfavorable at this hour, caught between the final rays of setting sun and the dimming of incoming night.

Marion closes the distance by a few steps, careful not to get too close as more people amble out and about on the sidewalk, crossing in front of her vision. For a moment she loses her target, her heart palpitating before she catches him crossing the street and walking through the door of a corner store. She growls, frustrated by his sidetracking and jogs across the street, a car speeding along. One flash of her dark eyes and the driver slams on the brakes.

She slips inside the store, keeping her attention focused on the chocolate bars, only stealing a glance at her target as he chats with another man, shaking his hand and appearing to make some sort of handoff. She randomly selects a pack of gum from the shelf and goes to the register to pay, tossing it on the counter and pulling notes out of her back pocket, fingers grazing the clip of the knife.

The clerk eyes her as he scans the item.

Marion calmly places crumpled notes down with a warm smile, the clerk taking them apprehensively, narrowing his eyes, something about Marion’s smiling not seeming quite right.

She maintains her composure as she catches her target exit in the mirror up above the register though her eyes stay on the clerk.

He hands her the change.

“Raqmet sizge,” Marion grins, jamming it in her pocket.

She strides out to the street holding a piece of gum between her teeth, quickly relocating her target further down the sidewalk. She grins to one side as she picks up her pace in his direction, the knife at her hip begging to be put to use.

He speeds up; she matches him, heart beating faster in anticipation. He weaves this way and that, brushing people on the shoulders as he passes, his strides quickening.

Marion chases after, impulse driving her to move faster, her fingers on the clip of the knife craving to pull it free. A young woman rams into her shoulder knocking her hand away from the knife. She glares at the woman’s back then turns to find the man reaching for the handle of an Audi parked on the curb.

[Crash Boom Bang – Unloved]

She growls and speeds up her stride, nearly breaking into a jog, the desire inside her veins impelling her body to move faster. She pushes past people, shoving them out of the way as her target opens the door.

She runs, fifteen meters away, baring her teeth as the man slides into the back seat then slams the door shut, the car peeling out down the street. Her legs carry her faster just as she notices out of the corner of her eye a hooded figure on the other sidewalk moving the same direction and speed as her but a few meters behind.

Marion stops abruptly.

The hooded figure stops abruptly.

“Merde.” Shit.

Marion breaks into a run, the hooded figure crossing the street after her. She swerves around a group of teenagers, cutting around the next corner, pumping her arms and launching into a sprint, huffing as she runs down the sidewalk, her boots thudding in a quick tempo. She glances over her shoulder to find her pursuer gaining ground on her rapidly, grimacing as the scars in her abdomen radiate pain, spreading down into her quads. She wills her legs to pick up their speed, her feet popping off the ground as soon as her treads hit the pavement like a track sprinter, her stride turning over at a rapid rate.

Her efforts reward her with a half step advantage, pulling ahead slightly.

Marion’s mind spins as she devises a plan, eyes darting across the street, her brain expeditiously calculating she wouldn’t be able to run across in time without being hit by the incoming traffic. She considers dashing through the door of the bar up ahead but decides against it, the likelihood of another exit low.

She works to control her breathing as her muscles start to tense and ache, not properly warmed up for such an explosive burst of energy. She sets her jaw and maintains her speed, her iron will stronger than her fatiguing body. She zooms past the front patio of a restaurant, dipping out of the way of waitress’s serving tray and swiveling her body around a bench.

Her pursuer bites at her heels, the hood falling off to reveal long hair and a determined scowl, fierce eyes dialed in on Marion.

Marion takes sharp breaths, her lungs sending precious oxygen to her long limbs. Sweat drips down her temples and dampens her shirt under her arms and between her shoulder blades. She glances at the storefront windows to her left catching a glimpse of the person barreling after her.

A woman?

Marion’s thoughts suddenly shift from escape to attack. Her hand goes to her hip, pulling the knife from her waistband and releasing the blade, keeping it tucked against her forearm as she presses on.

The woman tears after her, the pair getting confused glances from others on the street, people jumping out of their way if they hear them approaching in time. Marion tightens her grip on the knife, her eyes black and filled with venom. She glances sideways, watching the woman trail her in the glass of the windows across the street.

The woman reaches behind her back.

Marion’s eyes flicker; adrenaline pumps from her heart driving her legs to race faster. Her thoughts whirl, hastily putting together an attack plan as she looks around frantically, trying to taking in as much of her surroundings as possible, piecing together information as soon as her brain registers it.

The stoplight changing red up ahead.

Traffic speeding perpendicular to her path through the intersection.

People gathered at the corner by the streetlight.

A bicyclist zooming down the road.

A group of tourists far up ahead on the other side of the street, all looking in her direction.

She sprints for the crosswalk, a truck traveling at high speed through the intersection. The driver hits the horn, the warm air from the engine blowing into the backs of her legs as the truck misses her by a hair.

She kicks off the pavement, turning sharply to her right, wielding the knife, blood pounding in her head. She looks over her shoulder to find the woman on the opposite sidewalk a few paces behind her. Marion snarls and cuts across the street, her body starting to fatigue but her mind set on attack mode. The woman breaks to a stop, feet skidding on the ground as she changes direction away from Marion, unprepared for her to go on the offensive.

Marion’s eyes locate the gun in her hand, the muzzle extended with a silencer. She slings the knife at the woman and it spins end over end, impaling her in the back near the kidney area. She cries out in a high-pitched shriek.

Marion dives down to the ground behind a parked car, taking cover from the incoming bullets, the woman firing off several before reaching behind her back and finding the knife. She pulls it out in one sharp tug letting out a yelp.

Marion crouches against the car, peeking through the passenger and driver side windows then ducking down in a flash as the woman shoots in her direction, breaking the glass.

People shriek and shout. A car comes to a screeching halt.

Marion peers through the windows again to find the woman’s figure disappearing down a narrow side street. She springs to her feet and chases after, lurching around the corner only to fly back as bullets rip through the siding of the building.

Her heart races wildly, thumping against her ribs as adrenaline rushes through her. She glances around, people on the street giving her shocked and horrified looks. She takes a steadying breath then flings around the corner in a dive, somersaulting back up to her feet and searching the dim alley, immediately finding the knife stuck in a large packing crate, blood dripping off the blade and streaking down the wood. Her eyes dart to the door beside it, half a crimson handprint on the metal.

Her scars shoot out pain like a fire ripping through her abdomen, reminding her of her mistakes of the past. She rips the knife free then doubles over from fatigue, taking cover against the crate, panting in heavy breaths, wishing her body would recover faster.

A few brave individuals peer down the alley at her as sirens go off nearby.

“ _Fils de pute_ ,” she huffs, taking a deep, deep breath then bolting away from the chaos.

\-------- [Mas Que Nada – Sergio Mendes & Brasil ‘66]

**RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL**  
Lit up signs hanging above stores and restaurants reflect off the glass of the car window as Eve gazes out, sitting in the backseat of a FIAT Strada. She watches the buildings as they pass then a group of children riding bicycles, the one in front holding a flashlight, the others chasing behind laughing and shouting.

“How much longer?” she asks the driver.

“ _Quinze minutos_ ,” he guesses with a shrug.

Eve shifts around restlessly, pulling out her phone and checking for any new texts from Villanelle. She scrolls through their old messages, a conversation about what to have for dinner then a long string of messages from Villanelle complaining about not being able to sleep.

Nothing new.

She sighs and chews on her lip, her heart aching from missing Villanelle. Though it’s only been two days since they both left for their respective destinations it feels like far longer, the time spent apart not getting any easier.

The car comes to a halt at a stop sign, a scooter zooming up next to the window on Eve’s side. A man drives with a woman seated behind, her arms wrapping around him. Her dark hair hangs out the bottom of her red helmet.

The man looks over at Eve and grins, then winks at her and speeds off.

Eve stares up at the glowing neon letters of the club, music bellowing out the open doors, wondering if this is the right place. Skeptical that it could be, she turns to ask the driver just as the car pulls away.

“Alright then,” she nods.

She shakes out her curls, the humidity adding extra volume, and strides inside, music washing over her as the bass reverberates through her heart. She glances around the space, colorful lights flashing over the dancefloor in the center and down a set of stairs, a railing in front of her and all around the upper level, tables and chairs set up, a boisterous bar on one side. 

Her body pulls her over to the railing.

She looks down at the people packed together, their bodies in constant motion, sweat glistening on their exposed skin.

“Eve, Polastri,” a woman’s voice comes from behind her.

Eve turns.

“Thaís Costa Vila,” the woman smiles.

Her hair is tightly braided and up in a bun. Her trousers are loose with a vibrant pattern and her tank reveals strong arms.

Eve furrows her brow, “Uh, hi.”

“I am your contact. ABIN.”

“Right, right.” Eve quickly extends her hand for a greeting.

“Please,” Thaís waves it off with a smile, “we don’t need to be formal.”

“Oh. Okay.” Eve assesses the woman curiously.

Thaís saunters up to the railing. “So, Eve,” she glances down at the dance floor, “do you dance?”

Eve laughs and gives her a confused look, “What?”

Thaís laughs with her, “I am joking with you. We will be talking in the back, come.”

Eve follows her somewhat hesitantly, intrigued but also cautious, still trying to read the woman’s energy.

They weave their way through the clusters of people gathered in front of the bar, sliding past tables and dodging precariously held drinks, finally arriving at a small area sectioned off from the rest of the upper level overlooking the DJ below.

The music beats against the walls. They both have to shout, barely able to hear each other speak.

“Why here?” Eve asks as she takes a seat across from Thaís, a low table between them.

“It’s loud,” Thaís smiles. “Hard to record a conversation. And people everywhere,” she gestures around, “hard to find someone in the crowd.”

“Smart,” Eve nods, trusting the woman a little more.

“So you come from London?”

“Uh, Berlin actually,” Eve corrects, immediately questioning if she should have.

“Word does not travel very fast when it’s only by mouth,” Thaís says with a grin.

Eve shrugs, “Or maybe the people putting out the word just want it to be misleading.”

The song transitions, a new one with a faster tempo and heavier bass taking over. Eve glances out at the dancers, a bit of apprehension on her face.

“You are always distrustful, Eve?” Thaís asks with a raised brow.

Eve thinks as she watches a man wind his way through the sea of people in their direction.

“You learn to be after almost dying a few times,” Eve yells over at Thaís, keeping her eyes on the man.

“We’ve all almost died.” Thaís follows Eve’s gaze out to the dance floor, catching sight of the man as he gets closer. “So it’s a miracle we get any work done together then, huh?”

Eve chuckles but her eyes stay locked on the man, his black shirt clinging to his burly body as he walks towards them, a blank look on his face.

Eve glances over at Thaís with uncertainty, her thoughts moving faster.

“Relax. He is with me.”

Eve gives her a confused scowl, shifting anxiously, muscles tensing.

The man falls into the seat next to her, running his hand through his damp brown hair, his eyes a piercing blue.

“Uh, who are you?” Eve asks him roughly, feeling almost as if she’s seen him before.

“Who are you?” he retorts with a gruff voice and what sounds like a Russian accent.

They stare at each other as Thaís unobtrusively slips an object out of her pocket and walks over to him, brushing her fingers across his wide shoulders in a flirtatious way. He takes the small item from her, his hand much larger than hers, then stands and embraces her in a hug that is almost convincing.

Eve watches in bewilderment.

This was not part of the plan.

She scans the crowd of dancers checking to see if anyone else is coming their way.

“You are a good dancer,” Thaís says in the man’s ear.

He lets out a chuckle then makes his way back across the dance floor without another word.

“What the hell was that?” Eve demands.

Thaís rests her back against the railing, glancing down at the dancers in a casual manner. “An exchange of information,” she says simply.

“The information you were supposed to give me?” Eve counters, her eyes sharpening as they scrutinize Thaís. 

“No. There are parts to the operation other than yours.”

Eve scoffs, losing patience, “Can you just give me what I need so I can get out of here?”

“Not everything has to be about work, Eve. Sometimes it is good to let go, to shut off that part of yourself.” Thaís smiles as she slinks up, “To dance, like you are free.”

Eve sets her jaw. “I wouldn’t know,” she replies flatly.

Thaís looks over her shoulder back down at the dance floor, eyes searching for the man but not able to find him.

She turns back to Eve, “Korzhev Reshetnikov.”

“What?”

“That’s his name.”

“Really?” Eve retorts, somehow doubting that.

“The name he gives at least,” Thaís shrugs.

“And he’s a…a what? Another contact?”

“An independent contractor.” Thaís sits across from Eve. “That’s all I know about him.”

Eve eyes her skeptically.

Thaís grins, “Information is p-“

“Power,” Eve finishes with an irritated eye roll.

“I was going to say privileged. But power too. That’s what is said at least.”

Eve assesses her through narrowed eyes, taking mental notes of her features as she slips a slender rectangular box from some inner pocket of her pants, flipping it around in her hand.

Eve can’t help but laugh. “God, what else do you have in there?”

“These are not only very stylish,” Thaís pulls at the loose fabric of her pant leg with a smile, “but practical too.”

She hands the case to Eve who takes it warily, eyes still on the woman before peeking inside, not able to contain her curiosity. She finds a minute flash drive along with a black stiletto knife. Her eyes darken as her features become serious.

“Consider it a gift,” Thaís says. “The streets can be dangerous at night if you don’t know where you are.”

Eve shuts the case.

“Thanks,” she replies, her intense gaze focused on Thaís, then she smoothly shifts into a more playful tone, “Where do you suggest I put this?”

“Let’s see…” Thaís leans back in her chair and sweeps Eve up and down with her eyes a few times, “front of your pants.”

Eve shakes her head with a laugh, “How am I supposed to just casually-“

Thaís stands and slinks over to her, nodding for Eve to stand up. Eve does so slowly and Thaís takes her hand, pulling their bodies closer.

“It was a pleasure to meet you, Eve.”

“Oh, uh-“

Thaís kisses Eve on each cheek as she fumbles around with the case, shoving it down her pants.

“Enjoy Brazil.”

\--------

**TEL AVIV-YAFO, ISRAEL**  
A light breeze cuts through the hot air, Carolyn seated at a table on the second-story terrace of a restaurant, the sun just starting to make its descent to the horizon. She inhales the smells of Israel feeling a fondness, a feeling she rarely lets herself have but for a moment she holds onto it, remembering her time at the kibbutz years ago, a great many. She keeps the feeling a second longer before letting it go and it disappears as if the gentle wind simply carried it away.

An older gentleman saunters up behind her, a bounce in his step and a grin on his face, deep lines on his forehead and around his mouth, creases between his brows, an asymmetrical look to it all, suggesting his left side got more use over the years. He places his warm hands on her shoulders, giving her a soft squeeze.

“Carolyn, my dear.”

She smiles and puts her hands on his, feeling his rough and weathered knuckles.

“Lazzaro, you old fiend.”

He chuckles and takes a seat across from her, his tranquil brown eyes sincere as he gazes at her, hers animated but soft as she gazes at him.

“I thought I may never see you again,” she says, leaning her elbows on the table with a smirk.

“No,” Lazzaro dismisses, “you knew you would it just took longer than you wanted. You have never been particularly keen on waiting.”

“Depends on what I’m waiting for.”

“Aha,” he lets out a laugh as he looks out through the trees. “How does it look to you now? Like nothing has changed?”

“Like it’s all changed,” she says, clasping her hands together and giving him a small smile.

He chuckles, keeping his eyes upon the sky. “It’s odd when you stay in the same place. You don’t notice when things change around you because you are changing with them. It’s only when you leave and come back that you get to see it’s all different.”

“So I see you think you’ve become wise in all the years I’ve been away.”

He grins and turns back to her. “Time has a way of doing that.”

“Indeed,” she smiles, eyes gentle.

“And decades of operations involving the most confidential governmental affairs.”

They both laugh, grinning wide, neither wanting to start with business matters.

Carolyn gazes off longingly at the trees and sighs.

“I miss the spirit here.”

Lazzaro nods, “A good reason to stay.”

She glances back at him, their eyes staying on one another, a somberness filling in behind his eyes.

“Many other,” she pauses, “more compelling reasons to leave.”

Their stares remain as the breeze blows, tousling their hair and cooling their skin.

“Do you want to start, or should I?” he asks after a moment.

Carolyn falls back in her seat and rests her chin on her hand, looking off.

“I think you’d better.”

Lazzaro grins weakly and nods, a tinge of regret stirring in him as he traces over her features with his eyes, recommitting them to memory. He clears his throat and sits up straighter in an attempt to dismiss the feeling then takes a stack of photographs out of the breast pocket of his cotton shirt.

He tosses them on the table, the photo on top showing Villanelle with long lavender-colored hair in the palazzo in Rome. Carolyn glances over at it then slides her eyes up at him, holding his stare as the leaves of the trees rustle in the breeze, both of them feeling no sense to rush into business. He grins at her then nods to himself as if confirming some question in his head and she simply watches him, eyes sparkling, unable to contain the feeling of fondness from growing. Her fingers mindlessly toy with the corner of the photo forming a crease in it.

Lazzaro smiles conspiratorially, “I was shocked to find out the assassin and the operative were so involved. Living together, out in public together, intimate,” he pauses with a roguish grin, “together in private. How staggering.” He bellows holding a hand to his chest in astonishment then breaking into a deep chuckle.

Carolyn gives him an entertained smirk. “I hope you sounded more convincing than that.”

She thumbs through the stack finding photos of Villanelle and Eve together in Milan and Lecco.

“They are exceptionally eager to know for how long the relationship has gone on. How these two _women_ ,” he emphasizes with his eyes, ”they were very hung up about that part of it.”

“Too unconventional for them I suppose,” Carolyn comments with a grin.

Lazzaro laughs and watches as she reaches the end of the stack.

“It was up until about that one,” he says as Carolyn flips to a photo of Eve and Villanelle kissing on a snowy street in Brussels, “that they argued the two are just very close counterparts, or that the entire relationship is a front, that they aren’t actually involved at all.”

“Despite the ample evidence,” Carolyn remarks as she tosses the stack on the table and they splay out revealing a photo of Eve and Villanelle at the ice rink in London.

[If – Unloved]

Lazzaro rubs his chin in a contemplative way, creasing his brow in an earnest expression.

“They are more than curious now, Carolyn.”

Carolyn redirects her gaze out to the sky. “Let them look,” she says with a wave of her hand. “It’ll keep them preoccupied.”

Lazzaro raps his knuckles on the table as he chuckles, “Let the dignified agencies do their work while the children run around and play.”

Carolyn raises a brow, smirking to one side.

“Do I even want to know what you gave them in return?”

“More than I intended, I admit,” he shrugs, shaking his head at himself, “but that’s how it shaped out this time.”

Carolyn leans over the table, resting her chin on the back of her hand and gazing at him intently.

“More is still far less than there is to know, I’m sure.”

He nods, “Only some confirmation of evidence they already came with.”

Carolyn spreads the photos across the table getting a sense of all the information that’s there, a finger spinning the black and white of Eve in a hotel lobby in Rome absently as she grins as Lazzaro, the air feeling warmer, denser, around them. He taps his thumb against the tabletop, taking a breath and letting the sweet scents fill his lungs before letting it all rush out, looking away from her a moment.

Carolyn studies him quizzically, “Do I need to worry?”

He clasps his hands together and leans onto the table, giving her a steady look.

“Have you ever before?”

“Hm,” Carolyn laughs. “I reckon not.”

His fingers graze against hers as he shuffles through the photos on the table until he finds the one of Landen brutally killed on the grass of Central Park in New York City. He looks up at her with more gravity in his expression.

She brushes her fingers against his. “No agency wants to admit that one of their senior intelligence operatives was involved with a crime syndicate.”

“Not just involved,” he responds, speaking the words slowly.

“I see.”

“It’s unlikely that if a member of the SVR was killed in the spring attacks that the Russians would be responsible. And if an MSS operative and an officer of the Iranian service were targeted as well, China is not responsible either. Or Iran. Or the United States for that matter.”

“A senior MI6 operative was killed as well, lest we not forget.”

“You are missing the point.”

“So an independent organization,” Carolyn shrugs. “That’s hardly anything to get so cryptic about.”

“What is more impressive than a globally operated organization?”

She refrains from answering, letting him go on with his speech.

“The individuals responsible for dismantling it,” he responds for her. “Not only the ones carrying out the acts of violence, though those are very much sought after as well, but the individuals all the way at the top giving the orders. The ones collecting intel and pulling strings to organize such an operation. The ones who know more and are smarter than the organization who is supposedly just a shadow conducting its affairs in the dark, unseen, unknown by any agency.”

“I’ve kept my hands clean,” Carolyn responds with an unbothered shrug of her shoulder.

“There is always a trail, Carolyn,” Lazzaro says, spinning the photo of Eve and Villanelle together in the streets of Rome. “No matter how much cleaning you do.”

“Perhaps you should have pointed them farther in the wrong direction,” she retorts dryly.

He clicks his tongue and leans back in his seat casually in a confident way. “You are at your best when you feel the winds blowing from dark clouds drawing nearer on the horizon.”

“So you’ve become wise after all.”

“Only a woman like you can bring out that in me.”

“Well, you showed me yours,” Carolyn smirks. “I suppose it’s only fair if I show you mine.”

Lazzaro shrugs, his palms facing up as if it doesn’t matter to him. “There are no rules in the game of espionage. But if you think that what’s fair,” he shrugs again with a smirk, “I should not be the one to stop you.”

“You knave,” she simpers, then slips a thumb drive from her front pocket, placing it in his palm. “From Paris.”

Lazzaro smiles, “Give her my best.” He takes Carolyn’s hand fully in his. “Can you see them?” he asks flashing a smile then gazing out at the horizon. “All the way in the distance.”

She squeezes his hand with a grin.

“We’ve the dog days left.”

\--------

**KSTOVO, RUSSIA**  
Irina leans up against the brick wall on the backside of the cinema, a few lone streetlights giving off pale light. Two other girls about her age are on either side of her, one with green eyes and short brown hair, holding a bottle of alcohol in her hand, the other with long black hair and grey eyes, pulling a cigarette out of the pack with her teeth. Irina inhales on the rolled joint between her lips, the tip burning a hot orange then coughs out harshly, the smoke burning her lungs.

The girls laugh as Irina hacks. They speak in Russian to one another.

“Do another,” the black-haired girl urges before lighting her cigarette.

Irina holds back another cough even though her lungs feel as though they’ve been set on fire. She glances between the two girls, her vision spinning as she sways on her feet. She blinks to bring the double images of their laughing faces back into focus.

“Come on,” the girl with green eyes pressures.

Determined to impress her new friends, Irina takes another hit off the joint, holding the smoke in longer than her body wants her to. She blows it out her nose and mouth, suppressing the urge to cough as her lungs scream at her. She runs her tongue on the roof of her mouth, her throat dry and raw, her teeth somehow feeling dry too.

She inhales one more time, the ash at the end falling away in pieces as a comforting heaviness settles into her muscles, gravity suddenly feeling like it gains a greater advantage pulling her body down to Earth. She lets the smoke fall out of her mouth, blinking sluggishly, the world spinning around her, her eyes glossing over. 

The girls laugh in delight.

“Here, this will help,” the green-eyed girl holds up the bottle.

Irina passes her the joint, exchanging it for the bottle and slugging back a swig of vodka, the liquor setting her chest ablaze. She grimaces and nearly chokes, the taste in her mouth an unforgiving mix of cheap alcohol and weed.

The green-eyed girl inhales off the joint while the black-haired girl takes long drags on her cigarette. They try to blow out the smoke in rings, their lips in the shape of an “o” as they puff air out with their cheeks, neither able to get the smoke to do what they want.

Irina laughs, wavering back and forth on her feet, becoming more detached from herself but welcoming the feeling, chasing it even, letting it take her farther and farther away as it beckons for her to follow.

The black-haired girl takes the bottle from her hand. “You are such a lightweight,” she ridicules then swigs off the bottle, the cigarette between her fingers.

Irina grabs the bottle back, taking another long pull, coughing it out her mouth and nose, spilling it onto her hand.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” the green-eyed girl snatches it from her. “Don’t waste it,” she scolds, “I don’t know when I’ll be able to steal another from my uncle.”

Irina wipes her mouth on her sleeve. “I’ll steal another from the store right now,” she says, slurring her words.

“You’re fucking drunk,” the black-haired girl laughs and shoves her shoulder, Irina stumbling to the side, tripping over her own feet.

The girls laugh, leaning up against the wall on either side of Irina, the green-eyed girl crossing her arms over her chest while the black-haired girl finishes her cigarette, standing with the sole of one of her shoes up on the brick looking like true high school degenerate.

A group of older teenage boys comes around the corner, their hoods all on their heads.

“Shit,” the green-eyed girl mumbles, quickly putting out the joint.

“Let’s go.” The black-haired girl pulls her hood over her head. “Come on,” she grabs Irina’s hand, pulling her along.

Irina concentrates on her vision, the dumpsters and crates in front of her appearing as two then merging into one as her eyes attempt to focus. Her legs feel heavy like lead as she slogs along behind her friends, trying to hear what they’re saying.

“We should just go home,” the black-haired girl says before taking another puff on her cigarette then flinging it off to the side.

“I can’t go home like this,” the green-eyed girl hisses.

“Well what the fuck should we do then?”

“Hey,” Irina calls as she stumbles behind them. She looks over her shoulder at the older boys, a burst of light shining as one flicks a lighter. They all watch Irina and her friends, laughing and shoving each other around, one pointing in the girl’s direction then getting punched in the shoulder.

“I heard Timur is having people over tonight,” Fenya, the green-eyed girl, says in a hushed voice then glances back at Irina. “But we can’t take Irina, she’s shitfaced.”

“We can’t just leave her,” the black-haired girl retorts.

“Hey,” Irina catches up to them, forcing herself between their shoulders. “I’m not even drunk,”

“Just stay right there,” Fenya instructs, pushing Irina so she leans up against the street sign then pulling the black-haired girl aside up ahead.

“Her house is only two streets away. We take her to the corner and then she just has to walk the last bit on her own.”

“We can’t,” the black-haired girl glares. “We can’t just-“

“Timur’s house is like a mile away. You are really going to make me walk that far alone?”

The black-haired girl scoffs, “God, you’re such a bitch.” She grabs Irina’s hand again, “Come on, we’re taking you home.”

“Seriously?” Fenya retorts hotly.

The black-haired girl shoots her a furious scowl as she leads Irina down the street to the next stop sign.

“I don’t want to go home,” Irina protests, ripping her hand free, “I want to go to the party.”

“You can’t,” Fenya chides, “maybe if you weren’t so shit drunk you could but you look like you’re about to yak at any minute.”

“Fuck you,” Irina spits.

“Okay, you know what,” Fenya stops in her tracks. “I’m going this way,” she says, raising her brows at the black-haired girl.

The other girl throws up her hands, “We can’t-“

“It’s this way or that way! You really want to stay with that?” Fenya glares at Irina.

“God, fine,” the black-haired girl huffs. She grabs Irina by the arms, “Hey.”

“What?” Irina scowls, shaking her off. 

“Your house is down the street, just walk straight and you’ll be there, alright?”

“I know where we fucking are,” Irina retorts irritably.

Fenya starts walking down the street in the other direction. “Are you coming or not?” she calls. “Because I’m leaving now!”

“Fucking hold on!” the black-haired girl shouts then turns back to Irina, “just walk fast, okay? And text me so I know you didn’t die or get taken on the way or something.”

“Piss off,” Irina growls.

“Svet!” Fenya calls, her voice higher with frustration.

“Jesus, just fucking text me when you get home,” Svet says then leaves Irina and chases after Fenya. “Wait!” she yells, running across the street to catch up.

Fenya grabs her arm and they hustle off together in the other direction.

[Sombre – Unloved]

“Fucking cunts,” Irina spits to herself shaking her head, her brain feeling like it sloshes back and forth in her skull.

She pulls out her phone to double-check her location then stumbles down the street towards her house, a six-minute walk ahead of her. The darkness closes in on her as the lights from the cinema gradually fade the further she walks down the road into the neighborhood, only the occasional porch light illuminating her way.

She grumbles to herself, annoyed with Fenya for dragging her along, telling her they were going to see a movie then getting drunk and high in the parking lot instead, leaving her as soon as a better opportunity arose and taking Svet with her.

“Суки,” she mutters under her breath as her thoughts dance to her time in Paris and training with Marion. A savage smile forms on her lips as her eyes light up a little, her inner dialogue switching to French as she remembers all the tricks and secrets Marion taught her. She laughs to herself thinking of the time she stole Marion’s phone and how she’d never seen her get so angry, perhaps the only other time was when she refused to speak in French or Russian.

A warmness spreads through her remembering when Marion praised her after she killed Kristóf.

How she smiled at her.

The way it felt genuine.

The clanking of metal rings out behind her. She looks over her shoulder abruptly but finds nothing out of place. She sets her jaw and continues down the street, picking up her pace only slightly, her jumbled thoughts clearing as her eyes dart around for an item that could be used should she need to defend herself.

The clanging sounds again. She turns to see a figure disappearing into the shadows two houses behind her.

Her brain sharpens even amidst the intoxicating effects of the drugs, coaxing her more towards haziness. She looks around the houses nearby, eyes landing on a birdhouse hanging on a wooden stake across the street. She jogs over, checking over her shoulder then pulling the stake up out of the ground with a grunt, flipping it over and stomping on the bottom of the birdhouse, knocking it off the stake.

She wields the wooden stick, jagged on one end as she crosses the street again, standing still and listening in the dark, waiting for another sound, for the shadow figure to reappear giving her an excuse to use the weapon.

A quick movement in the front yard to her right catches her attention, then the rustling of the leaves of a shrub. She narrows her eyes and tightens her grip on the stake, hearing Marion’s instructions in her head as she stalks towards the yard.

_Kick them in the groin or the kneecap, jab them in the throat or stab them in the eyes. Hit them in the temple or the base of the skull to kill._

She flutters her fingers on the splintery wood, the shrub locked in her sights. She swings the stake at it. It swooshes through the air before smashing off bits of leaves and twigs. She goes for another swing as the rattling of a chain-link fence comes from her left. She snaps her head and bares her teeth, chasing the sound, running after it through a side yard, ducking beneath the heavy chain locking the gate shut and squeezing between the narrow opening.

She holds the stake up like a baseball bat, her adrenaline surging, ready to deliver a heavy blow and cause damage to whoever has the nerve to come after her. She jogs through the side yard, stepping through tall grass until she pops out on the other street.

A pair of strong hands grab her by the shoulders. She turns quickly, raising the stake.

A sturdy man with a beard stares down at her with stern eyes, the FSB officer responsible for her protection.

“Let’s get you home,” he says.

The furious determination falls from her face as her shoulders slump, caught out past curfew. She lowers the stake and drops it by her feet, a sliver of wood getting stuck in her palm.

The officer eyes her, inhaling a whiff of vodka.

“You know you should not be out this late,” he scolds.

He scans the area then nudges her shoulder, ushering her in the direction towards home where she will have the great misfortune of explaining herself to her aunt upon her arrival.

\-------- [Danger – Unloved]

**SHANGHAI, CHINA**  
Villanelle struts down the corridor of a grand hotel, her heels clicking on the marble and reverberating around the stone pillars and walls. Her hair is closer to Eve’s color in a sleek high ponytail and she’s wearing a black Alexander McQueen dress made mostly of lace with patches of fabric covering her, twisting around her body in an almost serpentine way then dripping down as if the lower part was too heavy and ripping free. A pair of strappy Jimmy Choo’s on her feet, naturally.

Ahead of her, she watches a middle-aged woman dressed in a similarly posh gown slip through the gilded doors of the elevator, no one else around the lobby at this late hour. Villanelle grins and nuzzles her nose into Eve’s green scarf wrapped around her neck, inhaling the scent as she hurries to the elevator.

The woman inside presses the button for floor eighty-one then “Door Close” and settles against the wall, elevator music playing lightly as the doors begin to shut.

Villanelle jams her arm through, catching the doors just before they close all the way, prompting them to re-open. She steps inside, the other woman keeping her eyes forward, not even acknowledging Villanelle there at all.

Villanelle runs her fingers along the silky scarf, her nails painted black, toying with the fabric as she keeps her chilling gaze on the woman’s profile, a sliver of exhilaration behind otherwise empty eyes. The woman glances out of the corner of her eye, catching a glimpse of Villanelle.

The elevator rises, the digital numbers above the doors increasing in value as Villanelle smoothly and slowly wraps the scarf around her fingers. The woman senses something and turns to look at Villanelle head-on, unsettled by the way she leers at her.

Then she suddenly recognizes Villanelle’s eyes, the feature she purposely neglected to conceal.

Her heart drops.

A terrifying smile spreads across Villanelle’s face as she pulls Eve’s scarf from around her neck.

“No!” the woman screeches, throwing up her hands to try to defend herself.

Villanelle punches her in the stomach and she doubles over making it easier to slip the scarf under her chin. Villanelle wraps it around her neck once then pulls it tight. The woman thrashes about as she chokes, yanking at the scarf, her eyes bugging out with panic and fury. Villanelle tugs, cinching the fabric tighter, pulling the woman up against her, curling her lips in a cruel smile as the muscles in her arms and shoulders tense.

She growls as her target gags, the elevator continuing to ascend, rising to the highest floors.

The tips of Villanelle’s fingers turn red, the tautness of the scarf cutting off her circulation as the woman flails and flounders about, gagging and letting out dreadful noises, the sounds of final gasps of life as Villanelle huffs out laughs, feeling the woman getting heavier as gravity pulls her lifeless body down. She rapidly unravels the scarf and the woman’s body tumbles to the ground just as the elevator doors open, her upper body landing between them.

Villanelle lets out a delighted laugh at the perfect placement of her landing. She could not have done it better herself. She steps over the woman and out of the elevator, slinking across the small foyer towards the stairwell, shaking out the scarf then wrapping it back around her neck, closing her eyes a moment and smiling to herself thinking of Eve.

Behind her, the elevator doors close, bump into the woman’s shoulders, then re-open.

Then close again, bump into the woman’s shoulders and re-open, continuing this pattern longer than the amount of time it takes for Villanelle to flee the hotel.

\--------

**RIO DE JANEIRO**  
Eve lies in the hotel bed in a comfy outfit, her room modest and reserved under the false name on her passport. The night is black outside her windows, only specks of light shining in the darkness. She shakes out her curls as her phone rings on speaker.

“Good morning,” Villanelle answers, her voice soft with sleepiness. She yawns.

“Hi,” Eve smiles. “Can you talk?”

“Mhm.”

Eve nestles against the pillows, “What are you doing?”

Villanelle breathes a laugh, “Lying in bed.”

“Me too,” Eve grins. “Thinking about you.”

“Thinking about me how?”

Eve can imagine the smirk on Villanelle’s face.

[Strange Effect – Unloved]

She chuckles and wiggles around getting more comfortable, closing her eyes and sinking into the pillows.

“Thinking about…your eyes,” she murmurs. “Their color in the sun.”

Villanelle breathes into the phone then there’s some rustling.

“What else?”

Eve sighs, slipping a hand under her sweats. “Your smile.”

“Hm,” Villanelle exhales. “What else?”

Eve breathes a laugh and sets her phone on her chest, letting her head fall back into the pillows, her fingers going to work between her legs.

“Your lips. And the way they feel on mine.”

A heavy breath, “What else?”

“Hm. Your tits,” Eve chuckles softly. “Your skin. Soft, and warm. Your smell.” She breathes heavily into the receiver, her fingers finding a pleasant rhythm.

“Eve, are you?”

“Yeah,” she breathes.

Villanelle huffs into the receiver. “What else?” she asks, her voice dropping to a lower sultry timbre.

“Your touch. The way you run your hands across my body, the way I run my tongue across yours,” Eve smirks. “Your taste.”

An exhale, sharp inhale, then sigh, “I’m thinking about your fingers.”

Eve takes a heavy breath.

“The way they feel, inside,” Villanelle purrs. “The way you know exactly what to do.”

“Yeah,” Eve sighs out, her fingers trying a new motion.

“Hm,” Villanelle hums. “The way your tongue feels.”

Eve’s breathing picks up as her chest reddens.

Villanelle lets out a shaky laugh. “The way,” she chokes a breath, “the way it moves in and out.”

Eve moans and lets out a deep sigh.

“Your,” Villanelle groans a breath, “your…“ She exhales into the phone. 

“Your fingers in me,” Eve murmurs.

“Mhm.”

Eve sighs, “The way they taste.”

“Eve,” Villanelle pants. “Eve.”

“Then the way you-“

There’s a sudden knock on Eve’s door. Her eyes fly open.

Villanelle sighs, “The way what?”

Eve sits up and pulls her hand out of her pants.

“Eve?” Villanelle huffs.

“Hold on.”

“What?” Villanelle whines with disappointment. 

There’s another knock, louder than before.

“Eve?” Villanelle asks, concern in her tone, the allure gone. “Was that a-“

“Yeah.” Eve climbs out of bed, turning the phone off speaker and bringing it to her ear.

“Eve. Who is it?”

Eve steps carefully around the corner to the door.

“I don’t know,” she says in a quiet voice.

There’s a rustling noise on the other end.

“Eve,” Villanelle says, serious now.

“Shh,” Eve hushes her as she treads closer to the door.

“What are you doing?” Villanelle asks quickly.

Eve’s eyes find the stiletto knife on the television stand. She quickly grabs it.

“Eve,” Villanelle demands an answer.

“I don’t know yet,” Eve snaps.

Another knock on the door.

“Eve,” Villanelle growls. “What-“

“Mute yourself.”

“What?” Villanelle barks. “Eve-“

“Do it,” Eve hisses.

Villanelle huffs into the phone then her side of the line falls silent.

Eve sets her phone behind the television, out of view, then slips the knife in the side of her joggers by her hip. She runs over to her suitcase and retrieves the flash drive, frantically trying to decide where to hide it.

There’s another bang on the door.

She shoves it down her pants and hurries to the door, looking through the spyhole to find a large man in casual clothes outside the door, tattoos covering one of his arms.

Eve creases her brow as her thoughts move fast. She doesn’t recognize him but feels compelled to open the door.

She takes a breath.

Then opens the door.

“Hi. Can I help you?”

“Eve, hello,” he greets with a deep voice.

“Um, I’m sorry, do I know you?”

“Sorry, my name is Saulo. I work with Thaís,” he explains with a Portuguese accent, extending his hand.

“Huh,” Eve eyes him, ignoring his gesture. “I didn’t know you were coming by tonight.”

He lowers his hand awkwardly. “She didn’t tell you?”

“No. She didn’t.”

“Hm, we are very busy, both of us, sometimes forget to update each other on plans,” he shrugs. “I can come back tomorrow if that is better for you?”

Eve calculates the potential outcomes of the situation in her head.

“No, now is fine,” she smiles, feigning warmness. “Let me just put on some shoes and I’ll-“

“Actually,” he interjects, “I was thinking it might be better to have this conversation in your room.”

Eve creases her brow at him.

“Because of the…” he searches for the word, “sensitive, content we have to discuss.”

“Uh…okay,” Eve nods. She steps out of the way to let him in, acutely aware of the knife at her hip.

“Excuse me,” he says as he sidles by.

He’s tall, well over six feet, and strong, his arms and shoulders muscular, his neck thick with part of a tattoo exposed.

He wanders into her room, eyeing her suitcase and her clothes tossed on the bed.

“So?” Eve asks, eyes darting to her phone.

Saulo turns and smiles warmly.

“May I?” he points to the armchair.

“Sure,” Eve nods and gestures.

She sits on the corner of the bed across from him, aware that she has a head start to the door behind her.

[Unloved Heart – Unloved]

“So,” Saulo rests his ankle on his knee. “What are you going to do with the intel we gave you?”

Eve stares at him. “Analyze it,” she says, going no further.

“For what purpose?”

Eve bites her lip. “Analysis,” she nods confidently.

Saulo chuckles, “That is like saying the definition of deception is to be deceptive.”

The air gets heavier around them, creeping into their bodies, tensing and tightening their muscles.

“It is though isn’t it?” Eve retorts, her gaze sharpening.

He nods and clasps his hands together, grinning to one side. “What is the goal of this analysis?” he asks with his hands, keeping his tone light.

“It’s a thorough investigation.”

“Of?” he inquires smoothly.

Eve leans back, slipping her hands in her pockets, feeling the handle of the knife.

“You know what Thaís gave me,” she shrugs. “Or don’t you?” She challenges him, eyes narrowing as she devises a plan.

He chuckles, “I just want to make sure you will be responsible with what we gave you, that is very privileged information.”

“Oh, I’m sure it is,” Eve remarks, her tone almost condescending.

“That’s why I came,” he shrugs. “I wanted to get a feel for you. Confirm you are the operative you claim to be.”

“Claim to be?”

He grins then leans closer, resting his elbows on his knees. “In this profession, it pays more to wear two faces at the same time.”

Eve pauses, trying to figure him out.

“Who are you working for?” he asks directly.

Eve withholds a response, the tension between them heightening.

“I’m sorry but isn’t the whole point of intelligence agencies cooperating is that deals are made, no questions asked?” she retorts, trying to keep her tone playful.

He chuckles under his breath.

“Maybe you’re the one being a double?” Eve tosses out.

The muscle in the side of his neck twitches.

“And who would I be working for?” he shrugs, acting unperturbed.

“I don’t know, another agency, the CIA, a global crime organization maybe?”

“If many agencies are colluding together, is that not the same as a corrupt international operation?”

“I guess it depends what side you’re on, which way you want to see it.”

“I guess it does.”

Saulo’s shoulders flex under his thin white T-shirt as Eve slides her hands to her hips in a casual manner, locating the knife.

“Where is the intel, Eve?” he demands, his tone no longer light.

They stare at each other, neither moving.

Eve throws up her hands and laughs. “Fine. You know what,” she stands, “I really don’t feel like dying today.”

He chuckles in his chest then gets to his feet. “I don’t think it will be that easy for you.”

She stares up at him, he down at her.

“I do.”

She whips out the knife and slashes him across the face, cutting a deep laceration in his cheek that rips through his eye. He howls and grabs his face.

Eve’s eyes widen, “Oh god.”

She swings the blade again and slashes his throat just below the Adam’s apple. He yowls, horrific wheezes escaping his mouth as he clamps a hand over the gash, growling at Eve with vicious eyes.

“Eve!” Villanelle yells over the phone.

Eve panics, gripping the knife with both hands as if it were a sword.

“What did you do?!” Villanelle shouts.

“I cut his face!” she screams.

“What?!”

Saulo snarls and lunges for Eve.

“Oh God,” she dodges him and scurries backwards over the bed.

“Eve!” Villanelle demands. “Eve!”

“What?!” Eve screams wildly.

Saulo keeps his hand on his throat as he slowly steps around the bed towards her.

“Stab him in the throat!” Villanelle instructs.

“What do you think I’m doing?!”

He slinks closer, blood gushing through his fingers, the gash deep enough to make breathing difficult but not deep enough to kill.

“The throat or eyes!” Villanelle shouts.

“Oh, God. The eyes?!”

“Throat or eyes, Eve!”

Saulo rounds to the other side, a savage snarl on his face as he forces her into the corner. She stands her ground, waiting for a moment to strike, for her body to spring into action. He lurches at her. She tries to jump over the bed but he catches her ankle.

“No!” she kicks him in the nose.

“Eve!” Villanelle shouts.

He growls and dives onto the mattress after her and she barely escapes his reach, scurrying to the other side.

“Eve!”

“I’m trying!” Eve screams frantically.

Saulo grabs the alarm clock on the bedside table, ripping the cord out of the wall.

“Oh, God.”

He hurls it at Eve; she ducks and it crashes into the wall behind her.

“The throat, Eve!”

He goes after her again, Eve heaving the chair in front of his path as he lumbers towards her. Her eyes dart around the room, calculating a way to attack. He corners her again, curling his lip in a sneer, blood pouring down from the slash across his face, one eye mangled.

Eve back herself into the corner, her heart racing wildly, her breath unsteady.

“Eve?!” Villanelle calls out over the phone.

Eve steps back; her heel hits the wall. She grips the knife, heart pounding as she stares Saulo in the face.

Then her thoughts align.

She holds the knife between her teeth then grabs the floor lamp and swings it at his head. He throws a hand up to block it as she pounces, driving the blade into his chest. He yells as Eve rips it out with both hands.

“Eve!” Villanelle yells.

She screams as she drives the blade into his chest again. He throws her backwards, clutching at his shirt, blood spreading across the white fabric, then he doubles over, coughing and hacking.

She knows it’s not enough.

“Eve!” Villanelle screams.

Eve hardly hears, too focused to respond. She stabs him in the back of the shoulder repeatedly as he collapses onto the ottoman, wheezing in breaths. She lugs him onto his back with a grunt then slices a deep laceration in his carotid. Blood spurts out soaking her hands.

Her untamed eyes gleam as she watches him struggle for air, clinging to life, then his head falls limply to the side, blood leaking out of the gash and onto the furniture and carpet. She takes shallow breaths, her body quivering, her eyes taking in the blood on her trembling hands, dripping down her pinky and up her arm, drawing red streaks on her skin.

“Eve!” Villanelle screams.

She shuts her eyes, her brain still catching up to what just happened, to what she herself just did.

Kill a man with only a knife.

A knife that fits perfectly in her hand, reminding her of dark impulse in Paris.

She clenches and releases her fist, feeling the blood smear around between her fingers as an overwhelming sense of power rushes through her, igniting her inside.

“Eve?!” Villanelle pleads, her voice breaking.

Eve’s eyes pop open as she gasps in a breath, looking around wildly, remembering where she is and why she’s there.

“Vil,” she mumbles.

“Eve, what happened? Are you okay? Answer me, Eve!” Villanelle sounds desperate.

Eve stumbles over to her phone and holds it up to her ear, breathing heavily into the receiver, unable to find words.

“Eve?”

She grunts.

“Eve, did you-“

“Yeah,” she exhales, the blood starting to dry on her hands.

“Are you-“

“God, I wish you were here.”

\--------

**ZAGREB, CROATIA**  
[The Darkside – The Limiñanas]  
Marion strides down the middle of the street in a ritzy neighborhood, a black bandana covering the lower part of her face, a chrome Magnum Desert Eagle in one hand, her finger resting on the trigger.

The half-crescent moon and stars are her only guide in the thick darkness.

She slips the gun in the back of her pants as she cuts through a side yard then jumps up a chain-link fence, climbing over the top with ease, her boots thudding on the ground as she lands, kicking up dust. She spins the gun around her finger then cocks it in a swift motion, prowling to the backyard, teeth bared under the bandana.

A Rottweiler barks at her as she strides around the corner, pulling its lead tight as it lurches and snarls viciously. Marion doesn’t flinch, hardly acknowledges its presence, her eyes locked on the two figures embracing lustfully in the pool, the rippling water glowing from underwater lights. They jerk their heads towards the dog alerted by its barking then quickly find Marion.

The man’s eyes widen as she points the gun at the woman.

“ _Što radiš? Čekati, ne!_ ” What are you doing? Wait, no!

Marion shoots the woman between the eyes, the man’s arms still around her.

He yelps in anguish, “ _Ne!_ ”

The woman’s body starts to sink as Marion redirects the barrel at him.

He throws his hands up, “ _Ne, ne-_ “

Marion shoots him once between the eyes then twice in the chest, successfully executing her target after his escape in Kazakhstan, hunting him down to his private address. She watches as blood trickles out from the entry wounds, streaking through the water and tinting it red.

The Rottweiler growls behind her exposing sharp incisors, defending its territory even though it’s young, its paws still too big for its body. Marion yanks the bandana off her face and turns to it with a fierce glare, her eyes black. It snarls at her, snapping its jaw as it lets out ferocious barks. She looks it dead in the eyes as it lunges at her, fighting against its rope, not a bit of fear in her. Not a feeling at all.

She waits.

And waits.

And waits.

Wavering on her feet in desperation for the rush to course through her body, something, anything, but it does not.

There is nothing.

She yells at the dog and it yelps, frightened by the loud noise. She raises the gun and lets out a deeply dissatisfied grunt through clamped teeth. The dog whimpers and cowers, looking at her with fearful, innocent eyes. She stares down the muzzle at it, lining up the sights between its eyes, her lip twitching as she snarls, her finger tapping the trigger.

She gets stuck in this position, grimacing as some force prevents her from fully pulling the trigger, her muscles tensing, her hands trembling. She turns on her heel and fires the rest of the magazine into the pool, the bullets creating miniature geysers as they blast through the water, the gunshots echoing through the still night air.

Another dog starts to bark in the distance.

Her breath shakes as she watches the blood swirl around in the water, dancing this way and that as the ripples from the bullets catch it. She lets out a miserable groan, the dog behind her yapping again trying to get at her, the choke chain cinching around its neck. She heaves the gun into the pool. It splashes and sinks to the bottom, cutting a clear path through the crimson-colored water.

The Rottweiler continues to growl behind her.

“Shut up, you stupid dog!” she yells, a Ukrainian inflection coming through.

It yelps and whines as she strides over, slipping the curved knife from her beltloop. It shrinks away from her menacing dark energy, whimpering and slinking down to the ground then trying to hide behind a lawn chair. She glares at it with anger-filled eyes as it looks up at her quivering, its tail tucked between its legs.

She releasing the blade and slices through the rope tying it to the metal post.

“Come on, dog,” she tugs on the rope.

It lunges towards the edge of the pool, sniffing and searching the water.

“No!” She pulls it along behind her, its claws scratching on the concrete as she drags it.

It follows her unwillingly around the corner and through the gate back out to the street, breaking into a run alongside her as she picks up her pace, sensing that she is now its best chance of survival.

\--------

**BERLIN**  
[La La La – Unloved]  
Eve sits on her heels on the floor, shuffling around all the papers and polaroids strew about, the contents of the flash drive from Thaís printed and spread across the ground. A cup of no longer hot coffee sits on her desk next to her phone, the screen still cracked. She gathers up several pages and pins them to the wall with no regard for poking a large number of holes.

A key slides into the lock and the knob turns. Eve’s eyes stay on the wall, her arms crossed over her chest as she analyzes all the pages.

Elena gasps as she opens the door, “Jesus, you’re in early.”

Eve grunts in response.

“How was Brazil?” Elena asks with a raised brow, quickly trying to get a feel for Eve’s energy.

“Fine,” Eve answers distractedly, hardly hearing the question.

“Uh-huh.” Elena carefully sets her backpack down on her desk then stands beside Eve. “Anything exciting happen?”

“Uh, no. Just this,” Eve waves her hand at the wall. “There are two assassins and three other members at least in this so-called Tokyo Circle which is a very accomplished and efficient group of trained hitmen. And women,” she adds.

“Huh,” Elena scans all the papers, a large detailed map of Tokyo in the center. “So…” she steps closer, trying to put all the information together. “Fill me in.”

Eve pins two more photographs of bloody kills to the wall.

“Kubo Sakamae. Age twenty-eight, from Morioka. Thought to be working for The Twelve for just over two years. Highly skilled with blades, uh, katanas, shuriken.” Eve points to a gruesome set of photos.

“Jesus Christ,” Elena mumbles, leaning closer to a photo of a young man with six small knives stuck in his back, “are those throwing-”

“Shuriken, yes. Bo-shuriken actually, long shaft, spike on the end. Sometimes coated with neurotoxin as in the case of Hwan Nam-Gi. Korean cyber analyst.”

“Fucking hell.”

“I know. I mean how sharp does a blade have to be to cut all the way through the bone,” Eve comments, eyes transfixed on the photo depicting a woman in a suit, her left arm and right leg chopped clean off.

Elena shuts her eyes, “Wow. I was not prepared for this first thing in the morning.”

Eve moves to the next profile, energized and stimulated, talking fast. “Then there’s Izzat bin Anwar. Or just Zat. Malaysian, twenty-nine, working for The Twelve longer, probably about…three years maybe? It’s hard to say, his kills aren’t particularly showy, mostly uh, close-range shootings, broken necks, strangulation.”

“Right,” Elena nods, “the boring stuff.”

“It is compared to _that_ ,” Eve remarks, pointing to the photo of an older man with his neck sliced nearly all the way through, his spine severed.

“God, it really only gets worse.”

Eve glances at her with an amused grin, biting her nail.

“So what do these people look like?” Elena waves a hand at the photos, “So I know who to look out for on my way home.”

“Oh, right.” Eve goes back to the mess of papers, shuffling around.

Elena traces her fingers across her neck as she scrutinizes the grisly photo of the older man closer.

“Jesus, is that his actual spine?”

“Kubo,” Eve says, pinning up a photo of a young Japanese woman wearing a martial arts uniform, a medal around her neck, her features soft with a timid smile. “Judo champion in university but died in a car accident shortly after. Tragic.”

“So she’s good at hand-to-hand too then?”

“Yes,” Eve responds then pins a photo of a Malaysian man to the wall, his eyes cold, high cheekbones and a square jaw. “And Izzat. Or Zat. I think Zat is kind of cool,” she comments with a grin.

“It is,” Elena agrees with an eye roll. She takes a deep breath, “Alright then. Anyone else?”

“Uh, yes but they’re not as important, just bodyguards for these two, kind of like a posse. Or circle.”

“Hence the name.”

Eve nods, “Likely experienced with firearms and self-defense but not officially on The Twelve’s payroll.”

Elena shakes her head, “God, I still can’t believe there are other assassins out there, scarier than Villanelle and Marion. It’s quite terrifying to think about really.”

“Well don’t think about it.”

“It’s hard not to,” Elena replies over her shoulder, going to the small kitchen for a cup of coffee. “Not all of us get to enjoy the luxury of living with an assassin.”

Eve scoffs and rolls her eyes, “Get on Marion’s good side.”

“Does she even have one though?”

Eve leans back against her desk and examines her profiles taking a sip of cold coffee, faintly noticing the temperature. Her eyes flicker as they move from photo to photo, her breath quickening and moving to her chest, her body growing warmer, her finger tracing circles around the rim of her mug.

Yannik and Bear come through the door.

“ _Guten morgen_ ,” Yannik greets Eve then beams as soon as he notices Elena. “Everybody is here so early today.”

Bear eyes Eve warily, her curls unkempt and sticking out wildly, her shirt wrinkled and tucked into her trousers on only one side, her feet bare.

“You okay?” he asks.

“What do you mean? I’m fine,” Eve responds curtly.

“I don’t know you have that,” he hesitates, “look on your face.”

“What look?”

“That look,” Elena chimes in, “when you’re all serious and determined, thinking hard about something.”

Eve furrows her brow at her.

“It’s not bad,” Elena shrugs, “just a thing you do.”

Eve sets down her mug forcefully, coffee sloshing over the edge. She shoots Yannik a dark glare noticing him curiously observing her.

“I have known you a while, Eve,” Elena says. “I do know a little bit about you.” She sips her coffee with a self-satisfied grin.

Eve rolls her eyes, ignoring the comment and going back to the papers on the floor.

“What is all of that?” Yannik asks, callow eyes glued to the wall.

“My girlfriend’s next assignment,” Eve responds flatly.

“I thought?” Yannik glances at Bear who shrugs his shoulders and shakes his head, Eve’s mood impossible to keep up with.

They both fall into their chairs, waiting for further instruction. Elena drums her nails on her mug, trying to make sense of all the intel pinned to the wall, swiftly analyzing the various kills, following along with Eve’s detailed profiles.

“So who are you giving to Villanelle?” 

“Who do you want to give to Marion?” Eve retorts.

“I kind of want her to go after Kubo if I’m being honest. Just to see how she deals with all the blades.”

Eve lets out a chuckle, “I’m sure there’d be a _lot_ of blood.”

Bear and Yannik exchange a glance.

“These are the next targets then?” Bear asks.

“Yeah,” Elena answers. “You said they work together?” she asks Eve.

“Uh, kind of but not really.” Eve gets up from the ground with more documents in her hands. “They probably complete their jobs independently but spend most of their free time together. And their money. Or that’s what it looks like at least.” She holds up photos of Kubo and Zat together at luxurious restaurants and lavish hotels, seated in VIP sections of clubs, posing in front of a Lamborghini Huracan and Maserati Granturismo.

“Wow,” Elena mutters.

“Could Villanelle target them both at once while they’re together then?” Bear tosses out.

“I think that job would require Marion too though,” Elena adds, glancing at Eve. “Not that Villanelle can’t-“

“I already thought about it,” Eve interjects, her demeanor suddenly sterner. “And it might be the best option, the smartest option. These aren’t going to be easy targets.” She wanders over to the wall, gazing up at it all with amazement. “These are assassins, experts at the same thing, trained to track targets and kill on command.”

She runs her fingers across the photo of a man with a katana sticking through his chest and poking through his necktie. Elena glances at Bear who glances at Yannik who glances at Elena.

Eve leans in closer, speaking slowly, “They’ve been working under the radar for years.” She lets out a shaky breath, eyes scanning all the information in front of her. “Villanelle can’t do it on her own,” she concludes, tossing the papers in her hands on Yannik’s desk.

He looks down at them then up at her, puzzled by her.

“So we send them together,” Elena resolves, taking a sip of coffee and glancing at Eve for her reaction.

“I feel like that might not go so well,” Bear adds hesitantly.

“What?” Eve chuckles, “two highly competitive assassins forced to work together after they’ve already tried to kill each other, what could go wrong?”

“They tried to kill each other?” Yannik asks with wide eyes.

“It was just a fight,” Eve waves off.

“You really think they’ll do it? Together?” Elena gives Eve a skeptical look.

“They don’t have a choice.”

Elena widens her eyes and lets out a sigh, “Good luck telling that to Villanelle.”

Eve shoots her a scowl, walking over to Yannik’s desk.

“How good are you at hacking?” she asks, judging him with a harsh gaze.

He looks at her with awe and apprehension, “Um.” He swallows. “Average?” he shrugs.

“Oh, don’t get all shy,” Elena cuts in, “I listen to the two of you go on about it all day, you hacked into MI5’s personnel files in one afternoon.”

Yannik’s cheeks flush.

“That’s true,” Bear backs him up. “He’s good. Probably almost as good as Kenny.”

Eve softens and shares a sincere look with Elena. She bites her lip considering her next question.

She turns back to Yannik, “Do you think you could hack into the CIA’s servers?” She cringes.

Yannik’s eyes grow in size. “The CIA?”

“Mhm.”

“Um. Well. It will depend on what you want to access.”

“Highly classified files and documents,” Eve says casually as if it’s nothing.

“Oh.” Yannik ponders. “Of?”

“Uh…well, I want to know if they have an undercover operation investigating this undercover operation.”

Elena eyes Eve intently as Yannik contemplates, scratching his head.

“It will be hard and will take some time but, I think I can do it,” he says with a confident nod.

“Great,” Eve utters going back to her desk, thoughts already moving on to something else. “Oh,” she turns, “what about a new phone?”

“New phone?” Yannik tilts his head to the side with a quizzical look.

“Mhm.”

“Why new phone?” Elena asks with a furrowed brow.

“Uh, well,” Eve grabs her phone from her desk, showing it to Elena, the screen shattered and edges scuffed.

“Jesus, Eve.”

“Did you drop it out a second-story window or something?” Bear asks.

Eve rolls her eyes then looks to Yannik, “So a new one?”

“I do not work for the technology department, but,” he stands, “for you, I will find one.”

“Thank you, Yannik,” she smiles warmly.

He grins on his way out the door.

“It’ll be good to have a working camera again,” Eve mutters under her breath, tossing her phone on her desk.

“Why do you need a camera?” Bear asks.

“Uh. No reason,” Eve shrugs, “just, taking pictures.”

\--------

Villanelle sits on the metro shaking her leg up and down, arms crossed. People are packed into the tight space, a teenage boy crammed in the seat next to her, large headphones on his ears. She chews the inside of her lip as she watches as flecks of light blur by in the tunnel, the metro car shaking around occasionally, the boy’s hip bumping into hers.

She bites away pieces of her cheek, Eve’s scarf looped around her neck and tucked under her sweatshirt, her low bun almost concealed in the hood.

She misses Eve, deeply.

An odd feeling for her, longing, yearning. A heaviness and something harder to describe.

Something…

Something…

Villanelle wriggles her shoulders, shifting around uncomfortably. She glances at the various people on the metro then her ears pick up on the music spilling out of the boy’s headphones. She scrunches her brow as she listens further, feeling a sense of recollection as the song continues but unable to put a name to it. She leans closer, ever so slightly, almost as if she’s drawn in by the sound, the piano, the chords, the rhythm, the lyrics.

_But the biggest kick I ever got_

_Was doing a thing called the Crocodile Rock_

Her leg stops shaking.

Her heart drops as she gets hit by a wave of nausea, her entire body going rigid as her brain registers the tune.

And when she last heard it.

Her stomach lurches again as her grip on the seat tightens, sweat starting to dampen her palms and her feet in her boots. Her eyes frantically dart around searching for an escape, for a way out, but she finds none.

Her neck tics as her ears unwillingly fix on the music, the song somehow growing louder in her head as if her mind was playing it for her, turning it up louder, just for her.

_Oh, lawdy mama those Friday nights_

_When Suzie wore her dresses tight_

_And the Crocodile rocking was out of sight_

She swallows back more queasiness, beads of sweat starting to form on her hairline.

The boy rubs his nose; Villanelle jumps, her wild eyes scanning over him then flicking around on the faces of the people around her. She makes eye contact with a young boy watching her with innocent intrigue, then looking away sensing something off about her.

Villanelle tenses as she sits paralyzed in her seat, a high-pitched ringing taking over in her ears as her mind turns up the volume on the song even louder. She clenches her jaw against it, grimacing and trying to suppress the darkness that swirls inside her like a vortex. The chorus screams at her.

_Laa, la-la-la-la-laa_

_La-la-la-la-laa_

Then her mother’s clear voice cuts through her. “I want you to leave the house.”

Villanelle inhales sharply, her fingers clawing at the seat furiously.

“You are not a part of this family.” Her mother’s words echo around her mind. “You do not belong here.”

Villanelle’s breath shakes as she feels phantom lips kissing her forehead then fingers tightly gripping her chin.

“You were bad from the beginning,” her mother tells her wickedly.

Villanelle’s eyes detach, emptying of all light as the chorus takes her farther and farther away, luring her into the pitch-black corners of her mind.

“You ruined me!” her mother growls at her. “You took everything from me!”

Villanelle shakes her head, trying to fight it off.

“Darkness!” her mother yells. “Darkness!”

Villanelle suddenly wants to scream but refrains, her left hand clenched into a fist so tight that her joints ache and her nails dig into her palm, almost breaking the skin.

Her brain screams the chorus at her, every muscle in her body quivering from the inside out.

_Laa, la-la-la-la-laa_

_La-la-la-la-laa_

She can’t take it anymore.

She clamps her eyes shut and holds her hands on her head, folding over herself, tears wetting her eyes as she grimaces and practically groans trying to battle against the pain that slices its way through her like a razor blade.

Her mother’s face appears vividly in her mind. “Get out of my house,” she sneers.

“No,” Villanelle huffs to herself, hearing her own words she spoke before.

_I am my mother’s daughter_

“No,” Villanelle whimpers, seeing her mother glare at her with such contempt, such disdain. Her mind drags her helplessly into the dark, forcing her to remember, all of it, every bit in agonizing detail.

The smell of the gasoline

The heat of the lighter

She shuts her eyes tight, her mother’s laugh ringing out as if she were standing right before her.

Villanelle whines, hearing the explosion in her ears, the shattering glass, seeing her mother’s lifeless eyes staring blankly at the floor

_I think I need to kill you, Mama_

The screeching of metal on metal resounds as the metro slows, arriving at the station, all the passengers swaying as the car stops. Villanelle hardly notices, her mind taking her further away into the unknown abyss. The teenager bumps his knee into hers as he stands. She bolts upright, startled to find the doors of the car open and people shuffling off.

She slowly gets to her feet, her eyes wet, her breath shaky and loud in her ears, the high-pitched ringing still there but the music turned down some. Her legs carry her through the doors and out onto the platform, her eyes catching the sign for the exit.

She floats, her muscles quivering terribly as her body moves her through the station towards the exit, her arms hanging heavy at her sides, her shirt sticking to her skin from the sweat on her back. Her eyes dart to every quick movement, a girl dropping a water bottle, a young man waving his hands. Her ears focus on every sound, the squeaky wheels of a janitor’s cart, the heavy footsteps of a woman running through the station. Every nerve in her body feels as if it’s pulsating through her yet she feels frozen at the same time.

The night air is cool but Villanelle hardly feels it on her face as she navigates down the sidewalk, passing cars parked on the street, her figure reflected off the glass of the windows, few others walking the street with her. 

“Darkness!” echoes around her mind, her mother’s face flashing before her eyes. She tries to shake it off but it stays with her, haunting her as she walks through the night.

Someone bumps shoulders with her, hard enough to knock her off balance, snapping her attention back to the present.

She turns sharply to find a middle-aged woman with frayed hair scowling at her.

“ _Dumme schlampe,_ ” the woman scoffs under her breath.

Villanelle’s pupils widen like a shark’s when there’s blood in the water, hardly any color left to her eyes, only black vacant pits.

Her face hardens to stone.

She strides at the woman before she even has a chance to react, grabbing her by the throat and throwing her into the car on the curb. She smacks into the metal door.

The ringing returns to Villanelle’s ears, the rest of the world disappearing out of her perception. She grips the woman by the hair and draws back her fist, swinging through into the woman’s cheekbone.

Villanelle hits her again.

Again, again, again.

Her mother’s cruel stare flickers behind her eyes.

“Darkness!”

“Darkness!”

“Darkness!”

She cracks the woman across the face with her knuckles, blood smearing over her silver rings, her body impelling her to beat the woman’s face bloody. She lets out a yell, unable to contain the rage as she delivers blows, the woman incapable of defending herself, cowering and trying her best to protect her head.

A snarl escapes Villanelle’s chest, a tortured look on her face as she yanks the woman by her hair then slams her face into the car window, grabbing her head firmly with both hands and smashing it into the glass, blood smudging across the pane.

The woman’s legs start to give, Villanelle unrelenting in her assault, a force darker than rage taking control of her.

A couple with a small child turns down the sidewalk. The woman immediately grabs her child tighter, the man wrapping his arm around her, sheltering her as they hurry away. He glances over his shoulder, horror in his expression.

Villanelle’s body trembles throughout as she clutches the woman by the hair, her body hanging limp. She releases her hold and the woman slumps to the ground by her feet, getting caught awkwardly between the car and the curb.

Villanelle catches sight of her reflection in the car window amid the spattering of blood, unrecognizable eyes staring back at her sending an icy jolt through her veins. She blinks as her mind returns from some faraway place. She swallows and looks down at her hands covered in blood, clenching her fists then wiggling her fingers. For a second she wonders if the hands do in fact belong to her.

Her inhales are shallow as she looks around, panic quickening her thoughts. A man on the other side of the street holds his cell phone to his ear watching her, looking at her as if she’s gone mad.

“Oh,” Villanelle exhales, her breath unsteady.

She steps away from the woman’s body, glancing in both directions of the sidewalk, an appalled woman holding her hand over her mouth down one side, a group of young men with their jaws dropped down the other.

“No,” Villanelle panics, “no, no.”

She gets her legs moving, stumbling almost as she jogs down the sidewalk then slips between two parked cars and breaks into a run down the street, faster than she’s gone in a long time.

\--------

Eve leans against the counter in the kitchen biting her nail anxiously, glancing at the clock and staring at it until it changes.

Villanelle was supposed to be home twenty minutes ago but hasn’t called or sent a text to indicate otherwise.

Eve tries to calm her nerves, closing her eyes and taking deep breaths while attempting to convince herself that everything is alright.

Villanelle is smart, observant, resourceful. She can defend herself. It would be a deadly mistake for anyone to attempt to attack her. She doesn’t need protecting, doesn’t need anyone stepping in to save her, she can take care of herself.

Eve lets out a heavy sigh and unlocks her phone, opening her messages hoping to find a new one from Villanelle but instead she finds nothing. She bites her lip and goes for the wine cooler just as there’s a bang on the front door, then the jiggling of someone trying the knob, the deadbolt locked this time.

Eve freezes. Her eyes immediately locate the largest knife in the holder on the counter.

The banging continues.

She snatches it then slinks towards the front door, her back up against the wall as she creeps closer brandishing the blade.

“Eve!” Villanelle’s muffled voice comes from the other side of the door as she bangs harder. “Eve!” she cries again.

Eve hears the panic in her voice and instantly rushes over, dropping the knife on the table by the door. She unlocks the deadbolt with fast fingers; Villanelle comes bursting inside, her energy chaotic, bouncing off the walls and hitting Eve from all angles. She quickly throws the door shut, locking it once more then turns to find Villanelle pacing in the living room, her hands on her head and a look of utter turmoil on her face as tears stream down her cheeks.

Eve goes to her aid, grave concern in her eyes though they dart to the knife as she passes.

Villanelle shakes her head, taking sharp breaths. “Eve,” she groans, sounding like she’s in a great deal of pain.

Eve grabs her gently by the waist, frantically checking her over. “What happened? Are you hurt? Did some-”

“No,” Villanelle roughly pushes her away with a snarl.

Eve is taken aback, assessing Villanelle with a small degree of hostility in her dark eyes. Her neck tics.

Villanelle holds her hand to her forehead in confusion, looking around as if she’s trying to remember where she is and how she got there.

“What happened?” Eve asks evenly.

Villanelle just shakes her head, looking away and clenching her jaw as she tries to fight off the incoming waves of pain.

“Villanelle,” Eve tries, cautiously taking a step closer.

Villanelle turns to her, a look on her face Eve has never seen before. A look of total desolation that turns into resentment and hatred then breaks down into fear.

Eve can’t help the adrenaline the pulses from her heart. She reaches for Villanelle, taking her hand tenderly, Villanelle melting and hanging her head at her touch, tears running down her face and collecting on her chin. She squeezes Eve’s hand, wanting to be held but feeling a great deal of conflict about it.

Eve furrows her brow with deep worry, “What happened? I can’t help you if you don’t-”

Villanelle jerks her hand free hitting Eve in the chin and knocking her away. Eve holds her face, the hostility growing inside her making her scar begin to ache. She has to work to contain the feeling from rising further, her body becoming hot.

“Villanelle.” Her tone is steely this time.

Swiftly, Villanelle grabs the lamp from the end table and throws it against the stone fireplace, shattering the ceramic base, then rips the expensive platter from the hearth and heaves it across the room with a growl, breaking it to pieces.

Eve watches her, unnerved, contemplating retrieving the knife for a fraction of a second.

Villanelle’s chest heaves as her frenetic eyes jump around all the bits of broken glass, her lower lip quivering as she tries to take a steadying breath, dark forces twisting and turning inside of her. She braces herself on the sturdy hearth, her body visibly trembling as a growl grows in her chest until she lets it out in a violent yell.

Eve doesn’t move.

[Cry Baby Cry – Unloved]

Villanelle hangs on the thick beam of wood, her body shaking as she sobs, inhaling harsh ragged breaths.

“Eve,” she whines.

Eve goes to her, sensing the deep hurt underneath it all.

“Eve, I killed someone.” Her voice quivers between cries.

Eve nods and runs her hand along Villanelle’s back, feeling her trembling muscles.

“It’s okay,” she reassures her.

Villanelle shakes her head and moans.

“It’s okay, Villanelle.”

“It’s not,” Villanelle squeaks.

“Come here,” Eve wraps an arm around her, “come on.”

Villanelle submits and falls into Eve’s arms, burying herself into her as she guides her to the couch, falling in a heap next to her. She cries out, tears gushing from her eyes as she nuzzles into Eve, gripping her shirt, hiding her face in Eve’s neck.

Eve wraps both arms around her, holding her as tight as possible as she shakes and lets out dreadful cries, the sounds of someone in excruciating pain.

“It’s okay,” Eve rubs her back, laying her cheek on Villanelle’s head.

Villanelle wails, clutching Eve tighter.

“It’s okay, Oksana,” Eve coos, brushing a blonde lock off of Villanelle’s face.

She pulls out the hair tie that loosely holds Villanelle’s hair then runs her fingers through her tresses to soothe her. Villanelle lets out a little moan and nuzzles against her chest.

“It’s okay,” Eve reassures her. “You’re okay.”

She strokes her thumb back and forth on Villanelle’s arm, a feeling rising up in her. She holds Villanelle tighter, wanting to protect her from whatever is hurting her in this way. She feels Villanelle’s chest expand into her as she takes a deep breath, letting out a long, long sigh.

Eve wipes the tears from her cheek.

She groans into Eve’s chest.

A tear falls down Eve’s cheek, seeing Villanelle like this simply unbearable.

“You don’t have to tell me,” she says, her voice low and nearly shaking.

She brushes her tear on her shoulder then nestles her head against Villanelle’s as they breathe together, Eve gazing out at the dark night outside, wondering what could be causing Villanelle such pain.

Moments pass in stillness.

The tears stop.

Villanelle shakes less.

She opens her eyes, almost surprised to see the living room around her. She lets out another sigh, closing her eyes again and burying herself into Eve.

“I killed her,” she says finally with a feeble voice.

Eve squeezes her arm, not wanting to ask but feeling Villanelle wants her to.

“Who?”

Villanelle cries again.

Eve nods, another tear falling down her cheek.

Villanelle sits up; Eve quickly wipes the tear away. Villanelle looks at her with tortured eyes and the most sorrowful, dejected look on her face. Eve gazes back tenderly, her eyes soft and accepting. It’s clear that she’s not looking at Villanelle but at Oksana and through to the child within.

Eve gently strokes her jaw, unsure of what to say next.

“I, I,” Oksana tries to speak, but shakes her head and looks away, unable to get any words out.

Eve takes her face with both hands, “Look at me.”

Oksana shakes her head, furrowing her brow to try to stop the tears from coming again.

“Look at me,” Eve murmurs.

Oksana sighs and turns her face, her eyes finding the red mark on Eve’s jaw, widening with concern as she shifts back into Villanelle.

“Eve, I-“

“It’s okay.”

“Eve,” she shuts her eyes and looks away again, distraught with herself for leaving a mark on her.

Eve doesn’t let her turn away. She holds her gently by the face, resting her forehead against hers then closing her eyes too.

“It’s okay,” she mutters barely above a whisper.

“No,” Villanelle moans.

“It is.”

Villanelle groans.

“It’s okay.”

They stay like that, tears returning to their eyes and streaking down their cheeks.

[Xpectations – Unloved]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We in the dark now
> 
> I don’t think the sexy time phone convo would fly with BBC
> 
> I’ll never listen to Crocodile Rock the same way again
> 
> If you are reading this right now, a HUGE thank you for taking the time!
> 
> Feedback is always welcome – comments from my readers mean everything to me
> 
> Find me on Twitter: @daydreaming_KE
> 
> Outfits:  
> Villanelle's [Alexander McQueen Dress](https://www.pinterest.com/pin/1970393574741261/)  
> Villanelle's [Jimmy Choo Heels](https://www.neimanmarcus.com/p/jimmy-choo-lang-100mm-patent-strappy-sandals-prod200820175)  
> Eve's [Knife](https://www.directknifesales.com/images/source/epic-black-switchblade-stiletto-knife-gbs012bk.jpg)  
> Marion's [Balenciaga Boots](https://www.farfetch.com/shopping/men/balenciaga-tractor-20-mm-lace-up-boots-item-15314034.aspx?storeid=10952)


	4. I Want To Go Home (Part 1)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eve continues with her duty of profiling targets but receives some troubling news in Berlin; Carolyn exchanges words with an old acquaintance in Chinese intelligence; Villanelle and Marion travel to Tokyo to complete their assignment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 4 is in two parts because it was so long
> 
> I can feel my style changing as I learn how to write more like a novel and less like a screenplay but in a good way I think
> 
> I learned how to use the em dash—which is very exciting so I’ll probably overuse it
> 
> Songs you will need (in order):  
> It’s Not You, It’s Me – Unloved  
> Devil’s Angel – Unloved  
> 感電 (Kanden) – Kenshi Yonezu  
> Love Will Tear Us Apart – Nouvelle Vague  
> This Is the Time (Radio Mix) – Unloved  
> Blue Monday – HEALTH  
> Fast! Fast! Kill! Kill! – Pshycotic Beats  
> [Spotify Playlist: I Want To Go Home](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5dDrocqZu31dfWzquzWNpi?si=gqm42Dg3RjCBGF5KGwVvuA)

**CEUTA, MOROCCO**  
[It’s Not You, It’s Me – Unloved]  
The final rays of sun linger on the horizon fading into shades of orange and pink, the sky darkening overhead.

The shadows of day gradually disappear.

One of Eve’s Ted Baker boots clicks on the cobblestone path as she walks, a rock stuck in her tread. The stone walls of the fortress around her defend against the street below, centuries before defending against rival forces combating for control over the Strait of Gibraltar—a strategic chokepoint. The vast ocean glimmers on the other side of the street, few cars driving by with the silhouettes of cargo ships moving at a steady pace in the distance. A sturdy, broad-shouldered man loiters by the low wall near the overlook, his dark features hard to distinguish in the dim light. Eve brushes down the front of her shirt and shakes out her curls as she walks up to him with an uncertain smile—the kind that looks and feels forced.

“Uh, hi,” she utters. “Are you-“

“Arnau Melero.” The man smiles. “ _El agente senior del Centro Nacional de Inteligencia._ ”

Eve flashes a more pleasant smile, hoping he won’t be speaking Spanish the entire time.

“Eve,” she greets, shaking hands with him. His are large and warm, his grip firm but not overly.

“Polastri.” He nods. “That’s what you are called more.”

“Called more?” Eve looks him up and down. “By who?”

“By me.” Arnau shrugs. “And a few friends,” he adds with a sly grin.

Eve scoffs a laugh as he fishes a pack of Fortuna cigarettes out of his jacket, pulling one out between his teeth.

“Oh, could I?” she asks feeling a sudden urge.

“ _Claro._ ” He sets the pack on the stone banister. “Take the whole pack.”

“Oh no, I just want the one.” Eve lifts the lid, discovering a small flash drive inside. “Oh.” She nods with a smile, letting out a chuckle. "Clever.”

“The most valuable trait to have in intelligence,” Arnau says, flicking the Zippo and lighting his cigarette. He offers the lighter to Eve.

She hesitates.

“What? You are not one of those people who holds it in their mouth but never lights it?”

“Um, no.”

Eve snatches the lighter from his hand and ignites it as he takes a long drag, raising his brow at her. She refrains from touching the flame to the end of her cigarette a second longer, waiting for him to blow out the smoke between his lips.

He smirks at her. “The MI6 operative.”

Eve clicks the lighter shut.

“The what?”

“In London. At the private club.” Arnau clicks his tongue. “What was it called?” He looks off towards the horizon, squinting as he tries to remember the name. “The uh… _es como_ …”

Eve lets him struggle, knowing what he’s after but not giving him the slightest bit of help. She briefly wonders if this is a put-up job, if she should just hop over the banister and make a break for it right then and there. She glances over the ledge at the grass below. The thought of a broken ankle makes her uneasy.

He snaps his fingers. “The Court. That’s it. Very stylish, very exclusive—posh, I think is the word for it.”

Eve gives him a long look as he takes another drag, being casual about it all. She lights the Zippo with conviction. The flame dances between them, casting a heavy shadow over her nose and into the corners of her eyes.

“He was killed by sarin.” Arnau blows smoke up at the sky. "Found in the tobacco of his cigarette.” He raises a brow at Eve.

She blinks at him, not looking ruffled or worried, not looking particularly anything at all, her expression stony and indifferent. She lights her cigarette and inhales deeply, relaxing into the sensation as the smoke fills her lungs, blowing it out with a cool kind of effortlessness.

Arnau laughs. “I thought the-“

“How do you know that?” she asks.

His brow goes up.

“How did you get that information?” Eve questions. “From MI6?”

“Two senior intelligence operatives were assassinated in London, at a public event. MI6?” He inhales and nods. “Did good work to keep it out of the news.” He exhales. "But that is not something that is sealed in a file and set aside in a locked vault somewhere to be forgotten.”

“Still, it’s classified, secret information.”

“Only to those who don’t have the key.”

Eve takes a drag, narrowing her eyes at him, quickly losing trust.

“You know, Eve, in total, twenty-two intelligence agents, ten politicians, and six high-ranking military officers have been contract killed in Europe in the last three years. Twenty-three of those in the last year alone.”

Eve blows smoke out of the side of her mouth. “I know how many-“

“Do you? In reality? Thirty-eight people. People in power who are supposed to have protection against these types of attacks. People who have control and authority. _They_ are the ones getting shot and stabbed and bludgeoned to death.”

Eve’s jaw tightens.

“Maybe to you, to me”—Arnau points with his cigarette—"to agents who spend all day looking at pictures of assassinations and kills, analyzing all the small details, it is only another two red pins in London. But the truth is, it was the assistant executive director of counterintelligence and the executive director of international operations.”

Eve puffs; the embers of her cigarette crackle. She looks at him with suspicion, the chill in the air seeping through her skin as the streetlamps illuminate along the street.

The sharp-edged shadows of night appear.

Arnau flicks the ash off the end of his cigarette. “And then there was the head of the treasury desk for international operations in the spring,” he continues. “And another senior operative—the assistant executive of the Russia desk. And another MI6 agent and MI5 officer. Two, if you have the right set of keys.”

Eve blows smoke out in a gust.

“The CNI is friendly towards MI6.” Arnau nods. "So when we learn information like this we want to know more so we can be of service, help defend the UK against future threats. But other agencies? Not so friendly ones? They see this, access the details of this?” Arnau inhales. Exhales. “MI6 really is a circus.”

Eve shakes her head with a frustrated scowl, biting the inside of her lip to stop it from turning into more.

“No?” Arnau asks, studying her. “You don’t agree? There is still a legal case against MI6 right now too.”

“Espionage is not some, some”—Eve waves the cigarette trying to come up with a word—"bridge game. People lie and betray and manipulate and deceive. If you don’t know how to survive that then it’s only a matter of time for when you end up filed away in a vault somewhere with your family thinking it was an unfortunate accident.”

Arnau laughs. “Such a cynical way to look at things. If that is what you believe then what is it that you are doing this for?”

“So I can sleep at night, in bed, next to my girlfriend, not having to worry about this kind of bullshit anymore. Not having to meet strangers in random cities, jumping from time zone to time zone carrying around top-secret intel, wondering if I’m going to get shot or not. It’s exhausting.” Eve huffs and leans her hip into the banister, rubbing her forehead, the cigarette between her fingers.

“Once you are in the game, agent Polastri, you can’t step out for a break because you got tired. People remember names, remember faces, details, better in this profession than any else.” Arnau stubs out his cigarette, holding up the butt before pocketing it. “Can I offer you something?”

“What?” Eve asks flatly.

“Learn another language,” he says, giving her a nod and a look as if he’s just divulged the most insightful bit of information. He jams his hands in his pockets and turns to walk away.

“ _Naneun imi algoissda._ ” I already know one. Eve’s Korean is smooth.

“ _Uznat' drugoye._ ” Learn another.

[Devil’s Angel – Unloved]

**BEIJING**  
Carolyn weaves around pedestrians and bicyclists in the crowded streets, hands in her pockets. She takes a left down a side street, a left through a narrow alley, another left while crossing the street and one more left ending up on a back alley parallel to the street she started on. Confirming she has no tail, she enters a key code unlocking a door, continuing down a long corridor that leads to a service elevator which she takes to floor 39, the ride up a bit bumpy. She strides through a bustling restaurant kitchen, the aroma of Wagyu steak lifting her spirits before she exits out the swinging doors into the dining area taking a sharp right into the private lounge, about half of the tables occupied, an impressive panoramic view of the city out the windows.

An austere man glances over at her as soon as she walks in. He’s around her age with thick black hair, neatly combed and starting to grey. His suit is crisp with a navy-blue tie, a black briefcase in the seat next to him. Xian Ming—counterintelligence operative of the Ministry of State Security—is another one of Carolyn’s longtime acquaintances, though this relationship has always been strictly professional.

He stands and nods at her as she glides over.

“Carolyn.” He smiles briefly, shaking her hand with both of his.

“Xian, good to see you. And here,” she adds with a smile.

He nods. “Thank you for coming. Please, sit.” He gestures.

Carolyn takes a seat across from him, crossing her legs and resting her hands in her lap in a leisurely manner.

“We will start and end this quick,” he says.

“Oh.” Carolyn protests with a frown. “You’re sure we can’t stay and order Wagyu or caviar? We are at The View.”

“I am sorry, not today.”

“No?” Carolyn raises a brow. “Too bad.”

Xian gives her an unsmiling look.

“I thought we agreed.” He pulls two photographs from his briefcase and pushes them towards Carolyn a bit forcefully perhaps. “This happened here in China. Shanghai.”

Carolyn peers down at the photos. The first, a woman wearing a chic black dress entering the hotel lobby. The second, her strutting across a small foyer. Even though her face is not captured and her hair is dark, she’s wearing an extravagant outfit and is very clearly Villanelle.

“The only thing I see wrong is the scarf,” Carolyn comments. “It’s entirely inappropriate for that neckline.” She shakes her head. “A shame really to waste such a gown.”

Xian rests his arms flat on the table, placing one hand over the other. He drums his finger once, unyielding in his gaze.

“She’s not MI6.” Carolyn shrugs. "I don’t control her.”

Xian stares at her.

She blinks at him.  
He slaps his palm on the photos and pulls them across the table, gathering them up and tucking them away in his briefcase, locking it closed.

“The victim was a member of _Shí'èr._ ”

“How curious.”

“We were aware of her situation.”

“Oh?”

“And were taking advantage of it.”

“Well”—Carolyn waves her hand—"this’ll all be a rather moot point in the near future, no reason in getting so miffed.”

“This causes dissent, Carolyn.”

“Your department seemed to handle it nonetheless,” she replies. “I’m sure I’m the only foreign liaison granted clearance to such information.”

“We came to a consensus.”

“Yes, _we_ did. But _that_ was not MI6.”

“Carolyn.”

“You and I both know that was far less of a mess than it could have been.”

“I and my department do not see it in that way. To us it is a breach of security”—he gives her a look—"and of agreement.”

“I can understand the frustration of losing a double but I’ve told you I’m not the one responsible. That operation is completely independent of MI6 or of any agency,” Carolyn says. “I’ve honored that accord.” She leans forward, giving him a smug grin. “And if our objective is the same then you must’ve seen this coming and couldn’t have been blindsided by the way that it did. Just in a bit of a fuss that it occurred without your borders.”

“The woman.” Xian taps his finger on the table. “The Russian.”

“Yes?”

“And the Ukrainian,” he adds.

Carolyn grins. “You’ve done your research.”

“We are informed,” Xian replies, leaning closer. “And we are interested.”

“Well it’s an independent operation—all is fair. Though you may have competition.”

“We are informed,” Xian repeats slower.

“Hm.” Carolyn laughs lightly. “Is there anything you and your cyber intelligence division don’t know?”

Xian gives her a sly smile. “It infuriates me to say that there is.”

Carolyn quirks an eyebrow as he readjusts the watch on his wrist and tugs at his sleeve.

“The Twelve was not the only organization interested in Peel’s technology,” Carolyn observes with a smirk.

“Your acquaintances in America know more about that than us.”

“And your comrades in Moscow?”

Xian presses his lips together. “We resume this discussion another time.”

“When the dust has settled perhaps?” Carolyn smiles, self-satisfied, resting her elbows on the table and speaking in a cautionary tone. “I do hope you won’t forget _that_ agreement, Xian.”

“When the dust settles the landscape could be very different.”

“Though I’m sure it won’t be something neither of us has seen before.”

Xian smiles and nods once then stands, grabbing his briefcase and extending his hand to Carolyn for a farewell shake. She follows suit, taking his hand and receiving a flash drive in a well-rehearsed maneuver. He turns and all but one of the other diners in the restaurant stands and follows him to the exit.

Carolyn slips the flash drive away in her trousers and stares off across the empty restaurant for a moment, gazing out at Beijing, aware of the man in the black suit to her left. The aroma of the rich cuisine lingers in the air but will have to wait for another day. She turns on her heel for the door, the man a step behind her.

“I know the way,” she says without looking back at him.

“In case you get lost.”

\--------

**TOKYO**  
[感電 (Kanden) – Kenshi Yonezu]  
A woman with shopping bags in both hands crosses the street, quickly jumping back as two Kawasaki ninjas speed by, a lime green one just behind a black one. Neon lights and symbols reflect off the glossy paint. Villanelle cranks the throttle racing after Marion, weaving around a van and chasing her into oncoming traffic, slipping in front of a truck then swerving back into the proper lane, the engine revving loudly before she shifts gears. She drives alongside Marion, the two of them leaning forward and racing faster in an open stretch of street, inching closer to one another then backing off in a high stakes game of chicken. Marion clutches the brake and takes a sharp turn, Villanelle narrowly missing a vehicle as she follows. Marion takes another hard left with Villanelle right behind her. She flies by taking the lead, glancing in her mirrors with a smug grin beneath her helmet.

The width of their bikes barely fits in the space between cars on the curb and those driving by. Villanelle speeds up, Marion’s front tire dangerously close to her back. They race down the narrow space missing side mirrors by mere inches, Villanelle twisting the throttle harder. The engine roars. She switches gears and speeds through the intersection, making a split-second decision and cutting across traffic to turn right. Marion races straight through, clutching the brake and barely avoiding a cluster of people starting to cross the street. Villanelle laughs to herself as the sound of Marion’s engine fades.

Frustrated by falling behind, Marion swerves around the people, turning after Villanelle and accelerating to a high speed, weaving around cars, unafraid to drive through incoming traffic to catch up. Villanelle spots her in the mirror and brakes hard and fast, her tires skidding on the asphalt as she takes an immediate turn. Her back tire burns out as she cranks the throttle, Marion doing the same. Other drivers honk their horns. Pedestrians shout as their engines thunder down the street.

Villanelle and Marion duck down low like street racers, air streaming around them and blowing their hair as they accelerate, smoothly switching into the higher gears. They race side by side, swerving so close at times that they could reach out and touch each other if they wanted. Playing a game, they drift apart and drive on either side of a cargo truck then cross paths and drive alongside a Toyota, crossing paths once more and doing this time and time again until Villanelle cuts in front of Marion and forces her to brake, flipping her off with both hands as she speeds away.

Everyone in the lobby steals glances at Villanelle and Marion as they stride through the front doors of the Ritz-Carlton towards the reception desk, their combined energy commanding the entire area.

“ _Konbanwa, yōkoso._ ” Good evening, welcome. The gentleman at the counter greets them, dressed sharply in a black suit and tie.

“Reservation under the name Felton,” Marion responds in Japanese.

The man nods and clicks away on his keyboard, occasionally peering up at them and losing track of what he’s doing on the screen. As he pulls up the room information, Villanelle glances around the lobby, uninterested in the people who seem very interested in her. It’s ultra-modern in design with geometric patterns and clean lines. A song softly plays.

[Love Will Tear Us Apart – Nouvelle Vague]

Villanelle turns back to Marion, scrutinizing her with chin held high, curious but unsure. The thought of smashing her head with her motorcycle helmet flashes through her mind.

“ _Nihongo ga hanasenai no?_ ” Marion asks with a smirk.

“I was never exiled from Europe, so no,” Villanelle says. “ _Você fala português?_ ” she asks with a self-satisfied grin. “ _Oder Deutsche?_ ”

“I have two Modern Japanese suites for you,” the man says in English before they can argue further.

“ _Hai,_ ” Marion replies, smiling in an overdone manner.

Villanelle loses interest in her, glancing around the lobby for something more entertaining. Her eyes flicker with excitement as she fixates on the deep blue aquarium across the way, colorful fish darting about and a shark swimming by. She watches it for a second, captivated by the way it moves elegantly through the water.

Marion rolls her eyes and kicks Villanelle’s foot. She turns with a scowl.

“What?” Marion raises a brow. “You have never seen a shark before?”

Villanelle glares through narrowed eyes and steals a butter cookie from the tray on the counter.

“Yes, please.” The man nods at her. “For you.”

Marion shakes her head as the man slides small envelopes in front of them.

“Here you go,” he says with a wide smile. “Enjoy your stay.”

“We will see,” Marion responds, snatching an envelope, Villanelle doing the same.

He frowns as the two walk away towards the elevators, passing by the aquarium. Villanelle slows to a stop, fascinated by a second shark swimming next to the first, smaller fish zipping about. Her mouth falls open in awe as she watches the sharks swim together, a soft child-like look in her eyes.

It is as if she has never seen a shark before.

Marion checks her watch, leaving Villanelle staring up at the aquarium and disappearing amongst the people gathering in the lounge, the Tokyo skyline the backdrop behind the bar. She approaches a man seated at the counter, leaning into his ear as she glides one hand across his shoulders while the other goes to his lap. She kisses him on the cheek as she slips a small object into her pocket before making her way back to the elevators.

She hits Villanelle in the hip with her helmet as she walks past.

“Come on.”

Villanelle scowls, pulling herself away from the sharks and following Marion to the elevators, checking the grand clock overhead. A young woman walks past, smiling coyly as she eyes them both up and down. Villanelle meets her gaze for an instant then redirects her attention forward while Marion locks eyes with the woman, the corner of her mouth pulling into a grin.

“Not your type?” she asks Villanelle.

She gives her a flat look.

“Oh, I forget.” Marion laughs. “You are married.”

“Eve and I are not-“

“Maria had a few things to say about you.”

Villanelle’s face falls.

“What?”

The elevator doors open just as they arrive, Okuda inside with a small suitcase at her side. She leaves it and slips between the two as they enter, more people stepping inside behind them. The music from the lobby grows louder in the small space.

Marion scans her key for floor 51 as Villanelle glares at her furiously.

“Did you-“

“Small world, no?” Marion smirks, placing her hand firmly on the handle of the suitcase.

Villanelle stares ahead, nostrils flared. More and more people enter forcing her and Marion to cram up against each other. Her body tenses when their shoulders touch.

The elevator stops on every floor between 45 and 51, Marion and Villanelle smiling cordially as new guests step in. A drunk woman in a lavish dress steps on Marion’s foot and tries to apologize in Dutch. Marion smiles but her eyes lack warmth, giving off more of a cold bitterness. The woman scoots farther away.

Only one older man remains as they approach floor 51.

“Finally us,” he says grinning.

Villanelle and Marion both smile with their eyes in a matching over-the-top way that comes across as clearly contrived. The man looks away, writhing his hands apprehensively as the elevator slows on arrival, landing on their floor with a resounding ding.

The doors open.

“Please.” Villanelle gestures for the man to exit first.

He nods with a smile and eagerly steps out.

\--------

**BERLIN**  
[This Is the Time – Unloved]  
Eve chugs down a cup of coffee, clicking feverishly on her keyboard and scrolling through the contents of the flash drive, eyes jumping from left to right as she reads over forensics analyses and ballistics reports, photographs and CCTV footage, maps and encrypted documents. She prints every image in high-resolution: close-ups of slashes and slices, gashes and gouges, bullet wounds in the chest and head, blood and brain matter splattered on windows and walls. Another pot of coffee brews as she waits for the printer to finish, drumming her fingers on the counter and staring absently as the coffee drips into the pot. The longer she waits the wilder her eyes get. Sharp yet unfocused. Clear yet distant.

She drops the thick stack of photos on the ground and swigs down a cup of black coffee, stretching her neck back and forth then kneeling down and splaying out all the photos, spreading them across the entire floor of the office. She goes to work arranging—pairing the different types of kills together, bullet wounds from shootings on one side, puncture wounds from sharps on the other, poisonings and strangulations going in their own area.

The photos speak to her but tell only part of the story.

She refills her coffee cup, next printing out all the forensics analyses: medical examinations, toxicology reports, coroner details.

The printer stalls.

She jams more paper into the loader and prints the maps next.

Caracas, Medellín, São Paulo, Córdoba, Mexico City, Tripoli, Nairobi, Niamey, Abu Dhabi, Zahedan

A new pot of coffee drips with aggravating slowness. Eve bites her nails as she waits, the printer turning out sheets in an unhurried even rhythm. Her mind rotates, attempting to put together all the information like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle with patterns on both sides, the pieces seeming to fit together then falling apart as she makes a different connection, flipping thoughts around, approaching it all from a new angle. She returns to the floor, sitting on her heels as she arranges and rearranges, organizes and reorganizes, calculating and categorizing each item as she moves. Her eyes gleam the more she makes sense of everything, attaching the forensics reports to the photos of the kills, learning the cause of death for each target. Who they were and where they were. How it happened and when. She analyzes the gruesome images like it’s a mathematics equation only she can solve.

Eve stands, taking a step back to assess her work, running her hands down her pants as her body trembles on the inside, from caffeine or for other reasons she does not know. Her palms are damp, her underarms too. She glides her hands to her hips, holding them there as her heart drums in her chest.

The Tokyo Circle profiles get torn off the wall.

Eve rips the pages apart, thumbtacks flinging this way and that. The edge of a paper slices her thumb. She disregards it, hardly feeling it, not having the time to, some inner force compelling her to work as fast as possible.

A few red drops get left on white pages.

She pins up document after photo after document after photo in an order that makes sense only to her, starting in the center of the wall then moving to a new section, filling the space between with more reports and maps. She dances to the beat of her mind, pouring the last of the coffee into her mug and chugging it all down at once, the cold temperature of no concern to her.

Something is still amiss.

Red thread.

She rummages around, pulling open every drawer in the room and digging through the contents, discovering deodorant, socks, a stockpile of Goldbears, and pepper spray before finally locating the spool in her own desk, tying the end to a push pin, cutting it, tying to another, cutting, going on and on like a spider meticulously crafting its web, linking photos to reports to maps, constructing two separate profiles, all of it coming together with immaculate precision.

Eve steps away from her creation, a wholly untamed look in her eyes as they dart from section to section, nodding to herself when it follows her equation, letting out a laugh—the equation solved. Her body shudders. Her fists clench and release.

The night is gone before it ever really started.

She returns to the coffee maker, tearing open the coffee bag to find it empty, chucking it towards the garbage bin with a grunt as Yannik walks through the door. He comes to a swift stop as soon as he sees Eve hunched over the counter gripping her hair.

“We need more coffee,” she says without looking up.

“Um, okay.” Yannik walks to his desk, carefully stepping around the remaining papers on the floor as if they were spots of lava. “You were in here all night?”

“Couldn’t sleep,” Eve replies, leaving the coffee pot.

“Oh.” Yannik runs his hand through his middle streak of longer hair, shaking it out then slicking it back. It flops to one side. “How can you look at that for so long?” he asks, nodding at the web of red thread on the wall.

“Uh…” Eve stares at a sliced femoral. She shrugs. “You just get used to it I guess.”

“Even if I studied this for years, I don’t think I would ever get used to _that._ ” He points to a body with the head chopped clean off.

Eve lets out a chuckle as he slides in front of her on his way to the coffee maker, circumventing the lava.

“Tea?” he asks.

“Yeah, fine.” Eve waves, narrowing her eyes at the photo of a woman face-down in a pool of blood. She moves it from one profile to the other, holding her chin as she evaluates. She scoffs. “That can’t be right.”

“Do you ever wonder that one day you will end up there?”

Eve moves the photo back. “Where?”

“On a wall in some office.”

Eve turns and gives him a pointed look.

“No,” she replies curtly and goes back to the wall.

“But your girlfriend, she is one of them, right?”

“No.” Eve shakes her head. "She’s not.”

“But she-“

“How’s the CIA going?” Eve interrupts. “Did you hack in yet?”

“No,” Yannik mumbles. “Not yet.” He fiddles with the corner of the box of tea.

“Well I want it done as soon as possible. Do whatever you have to, even if it’s illegal—especially if it’s illegal. I need to have access to all the files on their top-secret operations.”

“Eve-“

“Then I want access to MI6 and the SVR.”

“The SVR?” Yannik replies in disbelief. “Eve, Russia is very-“

“I don’t care what they are, Yannik, that’s your job so do it.”

He swallows and nods. “Okay, yes, whatever you need.”

“And after you’ve done that I want-“

Elena walks through the door, Bear behind her.  
“ _Ents-chul-dig-ung,_ ” Bear enunciates.

“Ints-shlu-ding-un,” Elena tries. She scoffs. “Whatever, I don’t care anymore.” She raises her brow at Eve, seeing two new profiles on the wall. “Leave some work for the rest of us, will you, Eve?”

Eve creases her brow at her as Bear drops his backpack by his desk, looking inside the box of Vanilli Bears. Only crumbs.

“Eve, did you-“

“Yes, I’ll buy you more. Yannik,” she yells over her shoulder practically into his ear as he slinks by. “Oh, we need more Vanilla Bears and coffee.”

He nods.

“He’s not an errand boy,” Elena says to Eve with a chiding undertone trying to make it light.

Eve crosses her arms over her chest, giving Elena an irritated scowl. 

“I need your help with the decoding algorithms for the CIA today,” Yannik mumbles over to Bear.

“Yesterday,” Eve comments, taking a seat at her desk and resting her head in her hands. A dull ache spreads from her scar into her shoulders and neck.

“Well, you’re in a lovely mood this morning,” Elena observes in an overly cheerful tone.

Eve pushes her hair back. “I was here all night.”

“No one asked you to be.”

Bear steals a glance over at them.

“Villanelle is gone, so—” Eve throws up a hand, falling back in her chair.

“Life comes to a screeching halt,” Elena replies with a grin.

Eve gives her a flat look as Yannik turns on the TV, changing the channel to ZDF news and lowering the volume.

“Why do you always have this on?” Elena asks, shaking her head.

Yannik shrugs. “To be informed?”

“You could literally access anything you want but still _this_ is how you choose to get your information?” Elena rolls her eyes. “By the way”—she looks at Eve—"I have something that might pique your interest. Jess sent it over last night.”

Eve sets her jaw. “What?”  
Yannik turns up the sound, his wide eyes glued to the screen. Bear and Elena glance over, reading the English subtitles as Eve rubs her forehead, the German only making her growing headache worse.

_…officials report a woman found dead early this morning. Local police have blocked off the area to ensure safety and are beginning an investigation. This event is suspected to be part of the increased number of killings in the European Union in the…_

“Oh my God,” Elena mutters.

Eve scoffs. “What?”

“Eve, look.” Bear nods at the TV.

Eve tiredly glances over at the screen, squinting to read the subtitles.

_…been informed that the victim in Mauerpark was an agent of the BND. The intelligence organization will now be stepping in to take control of the situation and has advised…_

“So?” Eve shrugs. "We deal with this all the time. It’s our job.”

Then it hits her.

Villanelle received intel from an operative of the BND in Mauerpark for her last target, the keeper in Shanghai. And Marion was supposed to meet an operative at the Fernsehturm but elected to come to the office instead. Meaning that someone somewhere has access to the inside movements of their operation and is leaking it to the commanders of The Twelve.

A wave of dark anger swells in Eve, tensing her jaw and creasing her brow.

She turns to Yannik. “Get all the reports you can on this from the intelligence department,” she orders. “They probably have all the details by now and I bet they’re trying to cover it up. Especially since it’s one of their operatives.”

“Eve.” Elena shakes her head. She nods at Yannik.

His head hangs in his hands, his body slumped forward.

“Oh, uh, my condolences,” Eve offers unsympathetically with a wave of her hand.

She reaches up and turns the TV off.

“Hey.” Bear frowns. "We were all watching that.”

“We can get the official report ourselves, none of that political bullshit.”

Bear and Elena exchange a glance as Yannik gets up from his chair, downcast and in low spirits. He trudges through the room, this time not in the mood to care about what he steps on, trampling over a ballistics report.

Eve scowls. “Yannik, where are-“

“Eve,” Elena interjects, shooting her a disapproving look.

“I was only going upstairs for more coffee,” Yannik mumbles over at Elena, looking at her with timid eyes as if asking for permission.

“Yeah, that’s fine, Yannik.” She nods. “Take a longer walk if you need just be back by this afternoon.”

“Afternoon,” Eve scoffs under her breath, shaking her head.

Yannik mopes out the door.

Elena shuts it behind him then gives Bear a “do something productive” look. He spins in his chair and gets to work on the algorithms, putting his headphones on to focus. Eve eyes Elena, rubbed the wrong way by her criticizing remarks and obvious opposition. Elena ignores her cold look—though aware of it—as she digs around her backpack and retrieves a sealed folder, tossing it on Eve’s desk.

It lands with a thud.

“It’s from Brazil,” Elena says, looking Eve directly in the eye.

Eve doesn’t move a muscle.

Bear bobs his head to his music entirely unaware of the standoff occurring behind him.

Eve breaks first.

She slides out of her chair and down to the floor, lying on her back and shutting her eyes, holding the crook of her elbow over them, the light all of a sudden feeling unbearably bright.

“Um.” Elena furrows her brow, not expecting that one. “Eve?”

“I need a minute.” Eve grunts. “I’ll get up when I’m ready.”

“Alright, that’s not strange at all.” Elena sits at her desk, hoping that if she starts her day like usual maybe everything will return to normal. “I’ll check for a pulse in five.”

Eve lets out a weak laugh as Elena kicks Bear’s chair. He turns, yanking off his headphones.

“Eve, what are-“

Eve groans.

He blinks at her. “Em, is she alright?” he mutters to Elena. “Eve, are you alright?” he asks louder.

Eve groans again, more irritated.

“Do you want to tell us about your little overnight project?” Elena asks. “The next targets. Maybe that’ll cheer you up.”

Bear gives her a funny look, having less of an understanding of Eve’s antics than her. She throws up her hands as if to say “do you have a suggestion?”

Eve grunts. “Carina Nunez. Twenty-four. Colombian. Recruited about a year ago after two double homicides using a machete.”

“What is with these women and blades?” Elena mutters.

“She’s likely responsible for nine kills,” Eve continues. “With her most recent target being a police commander in Mexico which she executed by severing his head from his body while he was on the loo.”

Bear rolls his chair next to Elena’s and glances at the wall, cringing the longer he looks.

“The other is Halim Tarik. Twenty-five. Served in the Tunisian special forces for three years training as a sniper.” 

“Oh God, a sniper?” Elena’s eyes widen with shock. “Eve, you can’t be serious.”

“That’s not good,” Bear mumbles.

“Yeah.” Eve sighs. “Killed at least thirteen people, mostly in Africa but operates in western Asia and possibly South America. I still need to double-check ballistics reports from the DGI. And we need intel from the kill here this morning. It could’ve been him depending on the cause of death. Or her. Or one of the other assassins.”

“How many more are there exactly?” Bear asks with a deeply unsettled expression.

“I still need to contact Mossad, the RAW, and the CSIS,” Elena says, rubbing her forehead with a heavy sigh. “What I really want to know is why the agencies don’t just send out their own operatives? Why wait around for more people to get murdered?”

“I don’t know.” Eve sounds exhausted. “I got this intel from a CNI agent-“

“CNI?” Bear asks.

“The one in Spain,” Elena answers.

“I got it from the CNI,” Eve continues. “But I think it came from multiple sources. It wasn’t organized at all, just a bunch of photos and documents, no files grouping anything together.” She scoffs. “It was a mess. And in multiple languages too. Thank God for Yannik’s translator program.”

“Huh,” Bear mutters, opening a Kinder chocolate bar.

“So you’re saying that without you this would all just be floating around out there, that no one else was able to put it all together?” Elena asks.

Eve lets out a chuckle. “Yeah, I guess.”

“I can’t understand it.” Bear shakes his head, biting off a chunk of chocolate. “Why wouldn’t the agencies want to put more effort into this? It seems pretty important with people getting chopped in half and all.”

“I don’t know.” Eve scoffs, having asked herself these same questions numerous times. “MI6 knew about Villanelle for two years before doing anything about it. And Carolyn’s known about The Twelve for—God, who knows how long.”

“Maybe _all_ the agencies are in on it?” Elena poses. “Or just some? Or enough to interfere with an operation until now?”

“I mean The Twelve has been operating for at least a decade,” Eve says. “Probably more. First starting out of Russia then expanding everywhere into every continent. Who knows how many people actually work for them. Boris could be for all we know.”

“You remember that map?” Bear asks.

“God, yes,” Eve replies.

“There was an Italian operation that verified that over eighty percent of those coordinates belonged to individuals with suspicious activity that tied them together,” Elena says “Encrypted calls and messages, location services, money exchange apps. That’s how they located _The_ Twelve. An insane number of hours of cyber intelligence analysis.” 

“ _That’s_ how?” Eve asks in disbelief.

“That’s what I heard at least,” Elena replies. “Can’t know for sure.”

“Kenny really was the one to crack them,” Bear comments before taking another bite of chocolate.

Eve laughs lightly. “Who would’ve thought.”

A collective sigh settles around the room.

“What did Carolyn say that one time?” Elena asks out of the blue. “No _one_ person can know everything.”

“Yeah, something obscure like that.” Eve groans, stretching out her arms and legs.

“Purposely, I’m sure,” Elena adds. “All that woman is is one never-ending enigma.”

Eve has a good laugh at that.

“What do you think their endgame is?” Bear asks. “The Twelve?”

Elena shakes her head with a shrug. “I don’t know, really. The more you think about it the less any of it makes sense.” 

“Power? Control? Total authority?” Eve lets out a long sigh. “I don’t know, can’t figure it out.” She shakes her head. “Keeps me up at night.”

Elena and Bear exchange a glance, both worried and wondering what to do next. Elena nudges Eve’s foot playfully hoping to redirect the conversation.

“Do you know what I found in my living room this morning?” she asks.

“I don’t know, a chopped off head?” Eve guesses, making herself laugh.

“God, no, if it was a head I wouldn’t be here so calm about it.”

“What?” Eve asks wearily, sounding uninterested.

“A Rottweiler.”

“A what?” Eve’s eyes fly open. She sits up on her elbows giving Elena a baffled look.

“Like the dog.”

“Yeah I know what a-“

“It’s small, probably a puppy still, and awful cute I have to admit.” Elena rolls her eyes. “The poor thing was all huddled up under the couch hiding.”

“Wait. What the hell?” Eve laughs. “How did it get inside? Whose it is?” she asks as Elena digs around her backpack, ignoring the questions. “Elena.”

“This is the best part.” Elena tosses a piece of paper at Eve.

It floats down, landing near her arm. She snatches it and sits up straighter, reading the messy scribble.

_Kill it and I kill you_

“Who wrote this?” Eve asks with a quizzical grin.

“Don’t know.” Elena shrugs. “I can’t think of anyone who’d want to break into my—" she cuts herself off with a terrible realization.

“Bear, did you-“

“No,” he responds before Eve can finish.

“Do you think Yannik-“

“No, he’s not much of a fan of dogs after the one chased him when he was a kid.”

“What, really?”

“Yeah, he’s actually a nice guy, you know,” Bear says. “Good to talk to.”

Eve rolls her eyes, going back to analyzing the writing.

“Hm.” She bites her lip as she thinks. "Too bad we can’t get Carolyn to look at this.” She chuckles.

“I already tried which I immediately regretted, possibly one of my worst decisions.”

Eve laughs. “Do you have security cameras or anything?”

“Course not,” Elena replies. “No CCTV, I’m afraid.”

“Huh.” Eve stares at the slanted sloppy words, getting a feeling. “You know I might have an idea but you’re not going to like it.”

“I think I already know who you’re about to say and you’re right, I absolutely hate the thought. _Her_ in my flat. At night. While I’m asleep. With a Rottweiler for Christ’s sake. I don’t care that it’s small and cute, you should see its teeth.” Elena feels her canines, shaking her head and giving Eve a wide-eyed look of horror.

“Well”—Eve laughs, getting to her feet with a groan—"looks like you might be on her good side after all.” She returns the paper to Elena.

“I don’t want to be.”

“You’d rather be on her bad side?” Eve asks, falling into her chair.

“I don’t want to be on any of her sides. I don’t want her thinking of me in any way at all. She’s absolutely the scariest person I’ve ever met, one wrong look away from going totally unhinged and murdering us all. I’d probably end up on a bathroom floor with a shower rod skewered through me.”

“She’s worse than Villanelle, that’s for sure,” Bear comments over his shoulder, shuddering in her chair.

Eve can’t help but laugh more, the thought of Villanelle only making her smile.

“You sure you don’t want your own assassin?” She grins proudly at Elena. “They’re fun, easier to train than dogs.”

“You have actually gone mad. Do you know that?”

“What?” Eve chuckles. “Oh, respond best to praise and affection.” She lets out a cackle.

Elena shakes her head at a total loss for words, propped on her elbow on her desk, pressing her fingers between her brows and wondering how the hell she ended up here.

She sighs.

“I just don’t know what I’m supposed to do with the thing. I can’t get rid of it.”

“Whatever you do,” Eve says. “Don’t kill it.”

\--------

**TOKYO**  
Villanelle and Marion strut down the crowded sidewalk forcing pedestrians to swerve around them, neon signs blinking and changing colors on the sides of buildings. Of great annoyance to both of them, they wear very similar all-black outfits, Villanelle selecting a Saint Laurent silk suit and Marion a long kimono. She brings her hand to her nose, shutting one nostril and snorting with the other in a smooth move as if she’s done it once or twice before. Villanelle glances over and catches sight of the black snuff bullet in her hand.

“Did you just-“

“Oh, sorry I forgot to offer.” Marion smirks. “Did you want-”

Villanelle growls and shoves her into the next entranceway, throwing her up against the glass wall.

“Are you fucking insane?” she snaps.

“What?” Marion shoves her away before she can try anything further. “You never let yourself lose control?” Her pupils are too wide, a vast void of swirling dark energy.  
Villanelle lunges and pins her back against the wall.

“Never.” She sneers. “Not like this.”

“No?”

Villanelle secures her hand around Marion’s throat, smiling when she feels her struggle.

“You have your own ways?” Marion labors out with a contemptuous smile. “Hm?”

Villanelle curls her lip, red-hot anger mounting in her chest.

“You’re so fucking stupid,” she growls in frustration, choking Marion out.

“And you are so fucking boring.” Marion coughs a laugh.

Villanelle hits her across the face. Marion grips her by the shoulders, spinning her and slamming her against the wall in return.

“Careful, Villanelle,” she warns. “Don’t make me forget we are on the same side when we get in there.” She leers with the unstable look in her eye of someone whose mind is no longer under their control, tuned in to a higher frequency.

“We are not on the same side,” Villanelle spits, her Russian accent coming through stronger as she shoves Marion away.

They shake off the anger, shuddering their shoulders, brushing themselves off. Even with the animosity growing between them, they both know that this job is one they cannot complete alone.

[Blue Monday – HEALTH]

Villanelle and Marion stride up to the bouncers outside the club, a long line to get in wrapped around the corner. They exude confidence and dangerous charm with a spark of allure granting them access inside. The group at the front of the line gripes and groans.

They make a quick sweep of the nightclub, an open space with a curved bar to the left and the dance floor in the center with radiant flooring that pulses to the beat of the song booming out of the many speakers. Light fixtures hang from the ceiling glowing in blue and purple with tall pillars interspersed that flash and blink. A single flight of steps leads up to a lounge guarded by more bouncers. The DJ speaks into the microphone and the whole place erupts in cheer.

Marion brings her hand to her nose and snorts another blast of blow as they wade through the club, jam-packed with people. Villanelle’s neck tenses. The Glock in her waistband suddenly feels heavier, wanting to be put to use.

“Upstairs,” she says through gritted teeth.

“We can’t be so obvious.” Marion veers towards the bar. “Won’t you have a drink with me?” She smirks.

“If you get shot, you deserve to die.”

“I just want to have some fun.” Marion shoots her a devilish grin.

Villanelle follows in a near fury, wanting to be done with this before it even starts. She steals a glance upstairs on the way. Kubo and Zat sit next to one another on a couch surrounded by their crew, bottles of liquor on the table in front of them. A man in a glitzy white blazer, Tanaka, whispers something in Kubo’s ear while a woman in a sequin dress runs her foot up Zat’s leg. The woman, Yasui, glides her hand across his chest and under his jacket, leaning in for a kiss. Kubo gestures for a brawny man with designs buzzed in his hair, Somun, to come over to their section, giving him a silky smile. He notices Villanelle down below; she looks away just in nick of time and disappears within the sea of people at the bar.

“ _Khortytsa no shotto,_ ” Marion orders, ignoring the line.

The bartender starts to point to tell her to wait her turn but she slides two 10,000 yen notes across the counter. He pockets the money with a complacent expression and grabs the bottle of Khortytsa from the shelf.

“ _Ni,_ ” Villanelle adds, holding up two fingers.

“Oh, look at you.” Marion smirks. “Not so boring after all.”

“You are impossible to be around.” Villanelle grumbles.

The bartender fills two shot glasses to the brim with vodka, hardly giving them a second look before attending to the next woman in line.

“ _Kanpai,_ ” Marion says to Villanelle, holding up her glass. “It’s bad luck if you don’t.”

“I don’t need luck.”

“It’s always good to have it though, no?”

Villanelle huffs a breath out her nose and reluctantly clinks her glass against Marion’s.

“ _Na pososhok,_ ” she mutters.

They down the liquor, neither recoiling from the abrasive taste.

“Now we go upstairs,” Villanelle says, losing patience with Marion.

“You don’t want to dance?” Marion feigns insult.

“Just shut up and follow my lead,” Villanelle snaps back.

“Oh.” Marion’s brow goes up. “Okay. Please”—she gestures out to the dancefloor—"show me the way.”

Villanelle gives her a deadpan stare then in an instant matches her energy to the people around them, mimicking their smiles and liveliness. She navigates through the dancefloor, Marion behind her, shifted in energy too—making eye contact, biting a lip. Villanelle swivels with a woman in a short dress for a moment just to get around her, attention directed on the staircase across the way. Marion grazes her fingers across the woman’s hip as she passes.

After getting through to the other side—only held up by an obnoxious group once—they approach the bouncer by the stairs with the same self-assurance as the two at the entrance.

He puts up his arms to stop them.

“VIP only.”

“We are.” Marion flashes a dazzling smile.

She and Villanelle stare at him for a long second, waiting for him to give in. He shifts on his feet and glances over his shoulder up at Zat, Kubo’s attention on Tanaka. Zat narrows his eyes, intrigued by the two women, recognizing them and wanting to play. He raises his chin and the bouncer pulls the rope aside, giving them a single nod.

Villanelle and Marion walk up side by side.

“I take the right side,” Villanelle says. “You take the left.”

“You are giving orders now?”

“Exit out the back,” Villanelle continues, suppressing irritation, eyes on the door to the left of where Kubo and Zat are seated.

“Let’s hope it is one.”

They reach the second floor, going in their respective directions without another word. To the right is a smaller bar, to the left tall tables—people watching the dance floor below. Two more lounge areas are on either side Kubo and Zat’s section separated by glowing pillars. Villanelle slinks around people on her way to the bar while Marion weaves around tables on the left.

They prowl like hyenas circling their prey.

Kubo and Tanaka converse intimately while Yasui wraps her arm around Zat’s neck, glancing over her shoulder in Villanelle’s direction at Somun.

The Glock tucked in Villanelle’s waistband makes itself known.

A man with tattoo sleeves bumps into Marion from behind, perilously close to hitting her Sig Sauer. She and Villanelle exchange a ready glance, flanking Kubo and Zat’s section, each saying a final word to themselves. Villanelle thinks of Eve. In the same second, Kubo leans into Zat’s ear, reaching under the table as Tanaka puts his arm around her.

[Fast! Fast! Kill! Kill! – Pshycotic Beats]

Simultaneously, Villanelle and Marion draw their guns but Tanaka reacts faster, pulling a Glock from the couch cushions and shooting at Villanelle. She jumps sideways, firing at Somun then taking cover behind a pillar. Somun’s body topples to the ground. Marion provides cover for Villanelle, hitting Tanaka in the shoulder. Stark red blood leaks into white fabric.

Shrieks and shouts come from the dance floor as more shots ring out, the people upstairs covering their heads and running for the stairs in a frenzy.

The man with tattoos spins and fires at Marion. She dives down, shielding herself behind the adjacent couch, a throwing knife whizzing by and grazing her calf. Across the way, Villanelle jumps over the top of the bar, knocking a crate of glasses to the ground. Shots fired in quick succession break the bottles of liquor above her to pieces; shards of glass rain down. Zat holds the trigger of the rapid-fire Draco spraying bullets. She tightens her grip on her gun, bracing herself for whatever may come next. Eve flickers through her mind.

On the other side of the bar, Yasui wields four-bladed throwing stars, slinging one at Marion as she brazenly pops her head up over the couch. She ducks down, Zat shooting in her direction as he and Yasui make for the backdoor. Dauntlessly, Villanelle jumps to her feet, shooting him twice in the back of the leg as he runs. He spins and blazes up the bar, bottles shattering and showering Villanelle in vodka, gin, and whiskey as she drops to the ground, her heart pounding in her chest.

The music cuts out as all the lights in the club turn on to a blinding degree, everyone flooding the exits with terrified cries and screams.

Fluff and feathers explode out of the cushions, bullets ripping through the couch. Marion scrambles to take cover behind a pillar, Tanaka shooting at her and shielding Kubo while they run for the backdoor, the man with tattoos behind them. Villanelle springs up from the bar as Marion spins around the pillar, both hitting the man several times. Villanelle rattles off a few more shots that narrowly miss Marion. The man’s body collapses to the ground as Kubo slings a throwing knife at Villanelle. She dodges it by a fraction, firing at the woman before she disappears out the door with Tanaka.

Marion retrieves a new gun and checks the magazine for ammunition. Villanelle does the same, exchanging her Glock 17 for a Glock 22 with more rounds. They adapt to the new circumstances, unphased by the chaos, focused on executing their targets and staying alive. With weapons drawn, Marion leads the way through the backdoor and down a dark hallway.

They hurry down it, fingers on triggers itching to be pulled. The commotion of the club subsides the farther they run, reaching another door at the end. Villanelle kicks it open without skipping a beat.

Shots ring out of the small dim room.

Villanelle dives left; Marion right. She fires at another guard, hitting him in the chest as Villanelle locks sight on Tanaka, shooting him through the head; blood sprays out the back of his skull. She provides cover for Marion who scurries behind a cube-shaped table, Zat holding the trigger on the Draco and aiming in her direction. Empty cartridges fling out as the table gets blown to pieces.

Villanelle seeks cover behind the table in the left corner, knives flying past her and getting stuck in couch cushions. She reaches blindly over the top and fires in Zat’s direction, trying to give Marion relief as she takes stock of the situation.

Kubo and Yasui are positioned in the corner opposite of her, shielded by an upturned table. Zat—who has stopped shooting—drags himself behind the glowing sculpture in the center of the room, light shining wildly out of bullet holes. Marion glares at her, somehow still breathing, surviving the shower of bullets. She nods at Villanelle and gestures at the guard bracing himself on the counter in front of her, confirming him as her next target. Villanelle points her chin towards Kubo and Yasui in the far corner, dipping down to the ground as a knife nearly takes off her ear.

After a breath, they pounce to attack.

Marion shoots the guard in the chest as Zat fires at her. Villanelle shoots him in the temple, Marion leaping behind the counter barely missing bullets.

Knives flutter past Villanelle, one nicking her side. She hits the ground, crouching behind the light sculpture as another guard bursts out of a secret door across the counter. Marion catches him in the mirror above and jumps up, shooting him before he can react. She twists and falls to the ground, a series of knives nearly spearing her. Kubo and Yasui sling more at her as Villanelle spins to her feet, shooting Yasui in the chest, the woman too focused on Marion to notice her immediate demise.

With that, Kubo makes a break for it, snatching the Draco off the ground and running for the secret door. Villanelle shoots but the Glock makes the dreaded sound indicating she’s out of ammo as an additional guard charges through the door his gun pointed at her. Marion shoots him through the skull before he can pull the trigger.

Villanelle lets out a relieved breath, her heart palpitating painfully. She looks over her shoulder.

Marion grins at her, tossing her gun to the ground and taking a new one, checking the magazine.

Villanelle sets her jaw. “Let’s get this over with.”

She takes a new Glock along with a few throwing stars, intrigued by them. She and Marion hold up on either side of the door, nod once, then rush inside to find it empty except for bricks of drugs, cocaine being weighed and repackaged in discrete baggies for distribution.

“Wow,” Villanelle utters. “Is _this_ actually why you-“

“Come on,” Marion growls, running for the stairwell.

She and Villanelle race down the stairs, hurtling around the corners and popping out a door into a private parking garage. Bullets zip by blowing holes in the concrete. Kubo dashes from behind an Audi to the Maserati near the garage door. Villanelle and Marion open fire, breaking windows in nearby cars. They chase after her, lowering their guns to run faster, Villanelle a few steps behind Marion. She remembers the throwing stars in her hand and is eager to give them a try.

“Look out!” she shouts, slinging a star.

Marion yelps. It sticks her in the back of the leg forcing her to come to a stop.

“ _Connasse!_ ” she yells.

Villanelle cringes but runs past her, chasing after Kubo and throwing another star that bounces off the side of the Maserati as the woman climbs inside. She heaves another hoping to hit the tire but misses and aims her Glock instead, trying to hold it steady as she runs.

The engine roars to life.

Villanelle fires off several shots, breaking the passenger window and ripping holes in the metal. She races faster as the tires screech on the concrete knowing this could be their last chance to finish the job. Kubo gets a few stray shots off, aiming in Villanelle’s direction through the broken window but she hardly reacts, in full sprint, huffing quick breaths, eyes locked on her target. She fires the last eight rounds in the magazine and slugs Kubo in the chest on all of them.

Villanelle slows to a jog, panting and sweating as she arrives at the passenger side of the car, Kubo slumped back in her seat, blood pouring from the bullet wounds in her abdomen and spattered all over the dashboard. She inches her fingers towards her gun on the seat—just out of reach—doggedly glaring at Villanelle as she chokes out final breaths. Marion hobbles to catch up, blood soaking through her trousers. The blade screams in the back of her leg, tearing at her skin and digging into her hamstring, pain blazing like fire and getting worse with each movement.

“They will find you.” Kubo coughs, blood trickling out her mouth. “Torture you, beat you until the brink of death, make you suffer for-“ 

Marion shoots her between the eyes to finish the job. She and Villanelle let out a heavy sigh together, their muscles relaxing some knowing their assignment is over. Villanelle tosses her gun on the seat and wipes her brow, her heart still drumming in her chest. Marion does the same before bracing herself on the hood, the pain in her leg intensifying, the blade lodged in at least two inches. She bites down on her shirt, grabbing the star with her thumb and index finger but unable to do anything more, even a subtle movement like that causing the pain to shoot down her leg and up into her hip.

Villanelle bats her hand away.

“No!” Marion growls.

Before she can try to stop her, Villanelle tugs the blade out in one jerk. Marion lets out a furious and pained yell, huffing hard. She grimaces, grunting and groaning, fighting hard to stay on top of the pain and in control. A dark fury swells inside her that Villanelle is the cause of this momentary agony, but there’s a bit of relief as well that the blade is out and that part is over with, the next part of suturing the wound arguably the worst.

“Hopefully it wasn’t poisoned,” Villanelle says, tossing the star on the seat next to the guns.

Marion’s heart lurches. She huffs.

She forces herself to take a deep breath, filling her lungs and letting it out very slowly, doing this two more times before she turns and faces Villanelle who watches her cautiously, just now considering the consequences of her actions.

“I should be very angry with you right now,” Marion says, her voice taking on the unsettling even tone. She scowls as she holds pressure to her wound, racking her brain for the acting times of various compounds.

“If it was a neurotoxin you’d know by now,” Villanelle says, uncaring. “You’d be on the floor.”

Marion shudders at the thought.

“Convulsing or already dead,” Villanelle adds with a shrug.

Marion’s neck tics.

“Okay.” She grunts and pushes herself off the car, hobbling away from Villanelle towards the garage door, too depleted to care that she’s in a vulnerable position, just wanting to deal with the incision then have a drink and lie down, dealing with whatever may come later.

“Where are you going?” Villanelle calls. “You’re not going to make it far.” She can’t help but glance at the handguns on the seat.

“We just shot up a nightclub,” Marion yells back. “I am not staying around here.”

Villanelle bites the inside of her cheek considering her options: follow Marion on foot and possibly get chased down by police or steal a car and possibly get chased by the police. Killing Marion enters her mind then quickly exits.

She decides on stealing a car and tries the handle of the Lamborghini opening the door much to her surprise. She hits the ignition but the car doesn’t start much to her dismay. Villanelle glances around, hoping to locate some sort of storage box, having not practiced hotwiring since her time in Paris. On the wall by the door, she spots a metal box that could be just that or the electrical unit operating the garage door that if damaged could trap them there with no other exit. She reaches through the broken window for the Glock, shooting the latch off the box and blasting a chunk out of the side.

Marion jumps and spins.

“ _Qu'est-ce que tu fais?_ ” she yells, surprised by her own choice of language.

“Problem-solving!” Villanelle shouts back.

She pries the box open. Her eyes light up, four sets of keys inside. Beaming, she selects the keys for the Lamborghini, pressing the remote start.

The engine rumbles.

Villanelle jumps with joy and runs over, climbing inside and dancing her fingers on the steering wheel. It’s only at that moment that the pain pulsing out from her right side makes itself known. She looks down and finds the tear in the satiny fabric of her blazer, damp with blood, a shallow incision over her ribs. She swallows but doesn’t let herself think any more about it, focused on getting away from this mess and out of Tokyo, out of Japan, and back home to Eve. 

Marion limps in Villanelle’s direction, conceding, feeling drained and faint, hoping it’s just from minor blood loss and pain and not a radioactive toxin destroying her cells.

Villanelle pulls up next to her, revving the engine and rolling down the window.

“Excuse me, miss, do you know which way for the Ritz-Carlton?” She flashes a self-satisfied grin.

Marion clenches her jaw; her nostrils flare.

“Get in,” Villanelle says impatiently. “I won’t wait all night.”

Marion pulls on the handle right as Villanelle hits the lock button. She barks a laugh. Marion doesn’t try again, refusing to fall into her trap, and reaches through the window for the lock, beating Villanelle at her own game.

Villanelle scowls.

“Fine.”

She unlocks the door.

Marion yanks it open and collapses onto the seat, her leg on fire spreading into her entire left side. She glares over at Villanelle with overt hostility, incensed enough to kill her, imagining choking her with the seatbelt but falls back against the seat instead, letting her drive her back to the hotel which is—as much as she’d like to refute—her best and only option.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two assassins walk into a bar. One glares at the other. They kill everyone.
> 
> Couldn’t help but borrow a song from Atomic Blonde for the club scene
> 
> More to come in part 2!


	5. I Want To Go Home (Part 2)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mariella and the commanders decide to take a more aggressive approach to defend The Twelve; Villanelle returns to Berlin for a volatile reunion with Eve.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A Villaneve reunion
> 
> Songs you will need (in order):  
> Cold Wind Var. 1 (Day 1) – Ludovico Einaudi  
> Dreaming of You – Cigarettes After Sex  
> If – Unloved  
> Tell Mama – Unloved  
> Don’t Fall In Love (Every Single Time) – The Delmonas  
> Cry Baby Cry – Unloved  
> Xpectations – Unloved

**KEMEROVO, RUSSIA**  
[Cold Wind Var. 1 (Day 1) – Ludovico Einaudi]  
Mariella climbs staircase after staircase in the abandoned hotel, the air thick with a musty odor, a layer of dirt covering the floors, the railings nearly falling out of the walls. The entire building is one heavy gust away from crumbling to the ground. She steps through the rusted metal door to the rooftop.

In the darkness, she can just make out two figures near the ventilation unit, a bright blue light in the opposite far corner. She readjusts her posture, preparing herself before striding over to the two. Getting closer, she recognizes Lesko and Urata, Lesko with a cigarette between his lips.

“ _Buonasera,_ ” he greets Mariella with a grin, puffing.

“ _Dobry wieczór,_ ” Mariella replies then gives Urata a nod.

“You pick this location or Fraco?” Urata asks, standing up a bit straighter.

“Who do you think?”

“Mariella chooses a freight ship on the sea.” Lesko exhales a cloud of smoke. “Fraco, a building in the sky. What is next? A mine shaft underground?”

Urata chuckles.

“You know of a place?” Mariella asks, bumping his shoulder with hers.

“I could find one.” Lesko grins, taking another drag.

The energy lightens—the trio comfortable around each other—but is quickly disrupted by the distinct sound of a helicopter drawing nearer. A flashing red light becomes easier to detect in the black night as the chopper flies in.

“Fraco?” Urata guesses, having to raise her voice over the noise.

Mariella checks her watch.

“Eight after midnight,” Lesko says.

“Hm.” Mariella nods. “Two hundred euros it is him.”

Lesko laughs. “Xavier is with him? Or no?” He blows out his last puff.

“Xavier is-“

“Xavier is here before Fraco,” a smooth voice with a Spanish accent answers behind them.

A young man comes into view with a wide and charming grin on his face. His hair is dark, stubble covering a triangular jaw with a prominent chin. He’s on the taller side and lean but in an athletic way with a gold chain around his neck. Despite being younger than the rest of his counterparts, Xavier Morillo has commanded territory in Argentina for the last three years and accordingly has earned their respect.

Lesko laughs and he shakes hands with Xavier, the two of them hitting each other on the shoulder in a gesture of comradery. Marielle and Urata exchange a glance. The helicopter hovers on the far side of the rooftop, using the blue light as a guide for landing, slowly lowering until the gears touch down.

“Mariella, Urata.” Xavier nods respectfully at each of them. “We have not seen each other in many months,” he says to Urata, having to shout over the racket.

“No reason to before,” she shouts back.

The four smile and chuckle, teetering on the edge of nervously, the energy starting to wind up. A dropped pin might make any of them jump depending on where the sound came from.

The whooshing of air slows its rhythm as the rotors come to a stop, the engine of the helicopter powering down.

“Vedran?” Xavier asks Mariella with a raised brow, unable to hide an amused grin.

She shrugs her shoulder. “These things happen.”

“Yes.” Xavier nods. “I was only sad that I missed the _actuación._ ” He waggles his brow and flips the Argentine peso with his thumb, catching it smoothly in his palm.

Lesko puts a hand on the younger man’s shoulder advising him to settle down as the helicopter door opens.

A brute of a man climbs down the steps, straightening his fur coat before marching over. His face is square with a heavy brow over dark eyes that only seem to show anger—no other emotion. Having a predilection for wearing the jewelry of those he executes, Fraco Alencar Cabral has gold rings on five fingers, his favorite that of a lion’s head studded with diamonds belonging to a high-ranking member of the Sinaloa Cartel. One of the first members to establish control in South America and overseeing Brazil, Colombia, and Venezuela for the last ten years, he emanates superiority, eager to take any measure necessary to maintain power.

He lumbers towards them. They each stand up straighter, raise their chins, brace for impact, his volatile energy reaching them before he does. Mariella reasserts her objective to herself one last time before his arrival.

Fraco clears his throat. “ _Que idioma?_ ”

“English,” Mariella replies before anyone else can.

Franco grunts and gives Urata a disparaging scowl.

“We do not speak Russian enough anymore—the true language of our organization,” Lesko comments, defending Urata in a perhaps not so subtle way.

“Russian, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin, Vietnamese—all acceptable for me,” Urata says. “But not for everyone here.” She gives Fraco a steely look.

Xavier shifts on his feet as Fraco cracks his knuckles, all of them popping. He holds his hands near his sternum, drumming his right fingers over his left hand.

“We need to reevaluate our plan.”

“ _¿Cómo?_ ” Xavier asks.

“Ozel executed the BND agent without error,” Lesko says with an unbothered shrug of his shoulder.

“It does not matter to me about the agents, I want Polastri dead. Villanelle and Marion dead,” Fraco says with a sneer.

Urata and Mariella exchange a glance.

“You don’t think that Villanelle and Marion can be beat into submission to work for us again?” Xavier asks.

“Marion, maybe,” Urata responds.

“It might be possible for her.” Mariella nods. “But Villanelle-”

“Villanelle is of no use to us anymore,” Fraco cuts in. “Her actions with Polastri in the last year are evidence of that.”

“Villanelle was once our best,” Lesko says, knowing of her activities since her recruitment.

“Best?” Fraco retorts. “According to who? The two of you?” He scoffs at Lesko and Mariella. “The three of you?” He glares at Urata. “You forget there is another half of the world that we operate in? Another half of the organization?”

“So we execute Villanelle and Polastri,” Xavier says, flipping the peso over his fingers. “Simple. Rehire Marion with a more strict contract and if she is not willing”—he shrugs—"execute her too.”

“That was our plan before but it has not happened and now one of my assassins is out of action,” Fraco says, his voice laced with anger. “I want them all dead.”

“We are putting pressure on them by executing their operatives first,” Mariella counters, unafraid to challenge him.

His upper lip twitches. Lesko and Urata exchange a glance, knowing their association with Mariella makes them a target.

“I want-“

“The bait and chase was unsuccessful in Kazakhstan,” Xavier interjects. “Marion escaped and Carina was stabbed in the process. We need our assets available. Marion and Villanelle put them at risk. The operation in Berlin has to be shut down.”

“It will be,” Mariella replies.

“We don’t have time for ‘will’ we need it to happen now,” Fraco growls at her.

Urata nods. “We are losing many people.” 

“Johann, Geneviève, Isidoro, Kenes, Redore”—Lesko counts on his hands—"Davor, Lei all have been killed. That makes us vulnerable to attack. Less of our keepers to aid in defense.”

“We are not vulnerable unless we allow our remaining assets to be targeted by the defectors,” Fraco says. “Do you wish to make the organization vulnerable?” he asks Mariella.

She meets his glare with an unreadable expression as Xavier continues to flip the peso, glancing across her at Lesko and Urata who both remain assured even as the tension ramps up.

“Polastri killed Saulo in Brazil, it is not only Villanelle and Marion who are a threat,” Lesko says.

“Who was it that supplied Polastri with the weapon?” Mariella asks.

“The operative in Brazil,” Urata replies, knowing where Mariella is going.

“Thaís Costa Vila.” Xavier nods.

“So their cooperating operatives are contributing to the risk and must also be executed,” Mariella says, looking at Fraco as if she were explaining it to only him.

“Their operation needs to be ended,” Xavier says. “With force.”

Lesko strokes his beard, contemplating their current positing. “If they are continuing to work-“

“I’m sending Ozel after Villanelle and Edris after Marion,” Fraco states.

“That decision is not yours alone to make,” Mariella counters. “Lesko, your thought?” She nods at him, encouraging him to finish with the feeling that it may help her cause.

“If Polastri is working with operatives from other agencies, it could be favorable to continue tracking her and targeting them,” he says. “We kill more of their people to prevent future attacks.”

Urata’s cell phone illuminates in her coat pocket, the light shining bright in the darkness.

“Excuse me.” She checks the screen. “ _Dō shita?_ ” she answers, conversing in Japanese as she walks out of earshot.

Xavier and Lesko glance over their shoulders at her while Mariella and Fraco give each other a long hard look. Fraco writhes his hands together in a scheming way as Mariella raises her chin to meet his energy, remaining unperturbed even with the clear hostility in his scowl.

“We eliminate any support for their operation while strategizing the best attack on Villanelle and Marion,” she says. “No irrational, emotional responses.”

Xavier and Lesko quickly redirect their attention back to her.

“We don’t have time for your strategy games, Mariella.” Fraco grits his teeth.

“If we want more time as an organization at all, strategy is what we require,” she replies being firm.

“Sometimes the best strategy is a display of power.” Fraco sneers cruelly. “You should know that from your KGB days.”

“Fraco, that is a mistake.” Lesko admonishes the idea, siding with Mariella.

“Intelligence strategy is the most important-“

“Fuck intelligence, Mariella!” Fraco retorts.

“It is required for the longevity of the-“

“This benefits nothing!” Lesko cuts in, scowling at Mariella.

“ _This_ is what we don’t have time for,” Xavier mutters, throwing his hand up at Fraco.

Lesko gives Mariella a stern look with a subtle nod, telling her he stands with her but up to a certain point which they are fast approaching.

“I received intel from an informant in Madrid last night,” he says. “Polastri met with an agent of the CNI. The one who is believed to be involved in the spring attack.”

Xavier nods, more to himself as Fraco’s glare directed at Mariella turns acidic.

“I have informants in naval intelligence gathering evidence that shows Thaís at the harbor in Buenos Aires,” Xavier adds. “I believe she is responsible for the death of Valeria.”

“You see the importance now, Fraco?” Mariella says, raising her voice.

Fraco grumbles, curling his upper lip.

Lesko speaks first. “Polastri meets with the operatives to collect intel from agencies. Villanelle and Marion are assigned targets. Our keepers are found dead. Urata has CCTV that shows Villanelle in Shanghai.”

Fraco guffaws out of frustration. “But, yes, we won’t kill them,” he says, his voice smooth with contempt. “We let them live because Mariella wants to. So they can kill the rest of our keepers and informants,” he spits.

The tension around the group escalates higher, everyone on edge.

“We have very few keepers left,” Lesko says, his allegiance to Mariella starting to waver.

“If any,” Xavier adds. “So who are they going to target next?” He flips the peso into the air and catches it in his hand.

Lesko goes to speak as Urata steps back into the group between him and Mariella.

“We have a situation.”

All eyes focus on her, an unsettling silence making them restless before she continues.

“An attack in Tokyo.”

Fraco’s jaw tightens.

“Kubo and Zat were killed,” Urata continues. “Yasui, Tanaka, and five guards.”

“ _Filho da puta!_ ” Fraco growls.

Lesko shakes his head, an absent look in his eye as Xavier runs his hands through his thick hair, the two of them taking in the gravity of the situation.

Their assassins are now being targeted.

Mariella starts to unravel from the uncanny timing, wondering how it went down, if Marion and Villanelle both survived.

“Killed by who?” she inquires, her voice showing a hint of alarm.

“Marion.” Urata shakes her head in disappointment, having once had command over her.

“Villanelle?” Lesko asks, almost reluctantly.

“Her too.”

“ _Coño_.” Xavier heaves the peso at the ground and stomps away from the group, cursing and throwing his hands about.

Lesko holds his fist to his mouth, giving Mariella cursory glances, rescinding his allegiance as Fraco tightens his grip, cracking his knuckles.

“Did they survive?” Mariella asks. “Villanelle and Marion?”

“I don’t know,” Urata answers. “They were not found at or around the scene but I have handlers searching. And informants with details soon.”

“Mariella,” Fraco warns, his voice shaking with rage. “If you try to stand in the way of defending this organization I swear to Christ I will throw you off this building right now!” His voice booms.

“Fraco-“

“No!” he shouts at Lesko. “We are acting now. I don’t give a fuck about strategy or intelligence. Edris kills Marion and Ozel kills Villanelle—no I want them captured so I can slit their throats myself.”

Xavier stomps back over. “ _Joder!_ We have to attack, no discussion. Only who we are sending where.”

“Mariella.” Lesko gives her a grave look. "There is no choice anymore.”

“Villanelle and Marion could be injured,” Urata adds. “This is our best time to attack.”

Mariella nods, taking a long second to make up her mind.

She relents. “Who are we sending?”

“Carina needs more time to recover,” Xavier says.

“Halim?” Lesko suggests. “He could-“

“I am sending Edris for Marion,” Fraco growls. “Ozel after Villanelle and Eve. I want them all brought to Caracas where I will make them watch each other bleed to death. Strung up like cattle. Then Halim will execute Carolyn Martens and Adalene Jacquet. Their entire operation, all of them will suffer and die in agony.”

“Fraco, a hit like-“

He grabs Mariella by her collar, yanking her close to his face. It shines with sweat. His overpowering cologne burns in her nostrils. Lesko pulls a Beretta, Xavier a switchblade preventing him from doing anything more.

“ _Cabra._ ” He snarls at Mariella. “What have you done this time?”

“Fraco, leave her,” Lesko orders.

“We need her alive, she is one of us,” Urata says.

“And there are not many of us left,” Xavier adds. He flips the knife in his hand and tucks it away in his belt, trying to deescalate the situation.

“I do not stand in the way of their death,” Mariella says, baring her teeth. “Only in the way of authoritarian decision making.”

Fraco shoves her away, raising his hand eager to slap her but refraining and clenching his fist instead, Lesko’s gun still pointed at him.

“ _Foda-Se!_ ” he yells at the sky.

“We have no time for long strategy, Mariella.” Urata’s tone is stern.

“We kill the CNI agent, track Polastri wherever she goes and target Villanelle and Marion,” Xavier resolves.

“Let Polastri expose another agent then we target her,” Lesko concludes.

Fraco sneers. “Carolyn and Adalene-“

“We target them,” Xavier says.

“Yes.” Mariella nods. She looks to Fraco. “If you want to haul in Eve, Villanelle, and Marion to execute yourself. I may have an idea how you can do it without sending out our assets. A way for them to walk to us instead.”

\--------

**TOKYO**  
[Dreaming of You – Cigarettes After Sex]  
Villanelle nestles against the pillows of the extravagantly oversized bed in her hotel room wearing a teal kimono with cherry blossoms and koi fish on the back. Tokyo Tower flickers in red and white outside her window rising above skyscrapers, the cityscape still glowing in the early hours of morning. She turns up the volume on her phone, Eve on video call.

“You’re awake early,” Eve says.

“Late.” Villanelle sighs softly. “Couldn’t sleep.”

“I won’t be able to either.”

Villanelle smiles. “How’s Berlin?” she asks.

Eve shrugs. “Boring.”

Villanelle breathes out a laugh. “Without me?”

“Yeah.” Eve gives her a weak grin before bringing a glass of wine to her lips.

“You’re drinking?” Villanelle sounds surprised though she shouldn’t be given Eve’s habits.

Eve nods and takes a sip, a little off-put by the comment.

“Which bottle?”

“The Giuseppe Quintarelli.” Eve does her best with the Italian name.

“Oh.” Villanelle grins wide with approval. “You are learning.” 

Eve rolls her eyes, smiling.

“Tell me something,” Villanelle says, slipping her hand under silky fabric. “Anything.”

Eve smiles wider. “I miss you,” she says honestly.

Villanelle lets out a heavy warm breath. “Yeah, that’ll work.”

She moves her fingers in a nice rhythm, her eyes focused on Eve’s lips.

“I wish you were home.” Eve grins. “With me.”

Villanelle huffs a smile. “Tell me more.”

“I wish…” Eve readjusts, settling into pillows. “We were together. Drinking in bed.”

Villanelle grins, her breath getting caught in her chest.

“I um, uh…” Eve trails off, looking away self-consciously, her smile growing.

“You what?”

Eve’s video shakes as she digs around for something.

_Admit it, Eve, you wish I was here_

Villanelle huffs, hearing her own words. She gives Eve a quizzical expression, enamored.

“You…” Words escape her, her body feeling warmer. “You kept it?”

“Well I didn’t throw it away.” Eve presses the button again.

_Admit it, Eve, you wish I was here_

“Eve.” Villanelle laughs, her cheeks flushing. “I-“

“I do.” Eve nods. “Wish you were here.” She holds the little pink heart in her palm and places it over her own.

“I wish you were here,” Villanelle echoes back, her eyes pleading.

“Just one more day,” Eve tells her.

“Feels like it will be more than that.”

Eve nods and smiles, eyes gentle, reassuring.

“I don’t like being away from you, Eve,” Villanelle admits, looking away from her phone as she says it.

“I know.”

“It’s-“

The click of the hotel door interrupts Villanelle. Eve furrows her brow at her, not hearing the sound.

Villanelle gets up with an irritated grunt. “It’s probably just the-“

Marion comes around the corner with a champagne bottle in hand, a noticeable limp in her gait. Villanelle tracks her with uneasy eyes as she walks into the room.

“Just what?” Eve asks. “Villanelle?”

Marion smirks, picking up on the energy of the situation.

“Am I-“

“I’ll call you back,” Villanelle blurts, hanging up before Eve can protest. She tosses her phone aside and wraps her kimono tighter around herself, scowling. “Does no one ever think to knock?”

Marion eyes her up and down, her smirk turning into a smaller more subdued grin.

“I brought champagne.”

Villanelle narrows her eyes, distrustful of such a gesture after the night’s escapades.

“You probably laced it with something.”

Marion holds the bottle up, the top still covered in foil. “It’s sealed.”

“You could still insert a needle and inject ricin.”

“You have done that before?”

Villanelle withholds a response, the sharp corner of the TV stand grabbing her attention.

“Hm,” Marion utters. “Then I guess we both have.” She tears off the foil. “But not this time.” She throws the crumpled ball at Villanelle who dodges it. “I will be drinking it.”

“Then you definitely laced it.”

Marion laughs and pops the cork, going to fetch two glasses from the minibar. “If I am going to die from some neurotoxin then I will enjoy a bottle of _Ruinart_ while I can,” she says over her shoulder.

“It is four in the morning,” Villanelle observes, following her out into the main room. “You have a problem.”

“Something your girlfriend and I have in common then.” Marion smirks. 

Villanelle growls in her throat. “How’s the leg?” she asks gruffly, sniffing and sticking her lips out awaiting a reply.

Marion ignores the question. She delicately pours the fizzling champagne into two wine glasses, Villanelle suddenly right behind her. She offers her a glass.

“I should have made you stitch it,” she says, looking Villanelle in the eye.

Villanelle plucks the glass from her hand, no intention of drinking it whatsoever.

“I would have refused.”

“Well.” Marion laughs. “Now I will always have something to remember you by.”

She quirks her brow and gestures her glass in a “cheers” before taking a sip of champagne. Villanelle glares at her, frustrated her conversation with Eve was cut short. Marion disregards her and glides to the windows, gazing out at the sky just starting to brighten to a pale blue. Her face softens. She lets out a sigh, staring at nothing in particular, letting her thoughts swirl around, recounting the events of the night in vivid detail. Villanelle drums her nails on her glass, watching her, making a note of the corkscrew on the counter as she walks up closer.

Marion’s shoulders drop.

“What does it feel like?” she asks, eyes on the sliver of orange on the horizon.

Villanelle stops.

“Hm?” Marion inquires.

Villanelle scoffs. “What does what feel like?”

Marion turns, softness to all her edges, gentleness where there is usually ice.

“Love.”

Villanelle blinks at her.

“You, and Eve.” Marion nods. “What does that feel like?”

Villanelle’s brow scrunches as she searches her trying to figure out her motive, cocking her head and examining her closer, considering all angles, all reasons, all intentions of asking such a question.

“Why do you care?” she responds, setting her glass down on the counter, tempted to grab the corkscrew.

Marion runs her finger along her jaw, contemplating her response.

“Because I want to know,” she says simply. “What love feels like.”

Villanelle narrows her eyes, skeptical and wary, inhaling a big breath wondering if she should share, if she should access these feelings in front of Marion, if she even can.

She blows out the breath.

“It is…um…” She tilts her head side to side, drawing a blank as she tries to look within. “I don’t know. I don’t know how to say it.”

“Try,” Marion utters. “Please.”

Villanelle surveys her intently, this new softer side, sensing no real threat, no danger. An inquisitive smile tries to form on her lips. She forces it away and slips her hands in the pockets of her kimono, looking off at Tokyo Tower while she ponders.

“It is like…” She exhales. “Always feeling warm. And calm. Like everything is a little bit easier when I am around her. I don’t know how to explain it, I just feel…” She shakes her head, searching hard for the words. “I don’t know I just feel different.”

Marion sips, trying to imagine the sensation in herself.

“To Eve, it does not matter what I’ve done. That is why she likes me anyways.” Villanelle smiles proudly. “For who I am.” She pauses. “What I am.”

She steps closer, eyes on the tower as Marion takes another sip then sets her drink down, studying Villanelle, trying to learn from her features—the subtle flushing of her cheeks, the spark in her eyes, her relaxed posture.

“She understands me because we are the same inside,” Villanelle says, her hand drifting to her heart. “I don’t know how else to describe it. It just feels…good.” She shrugs. “Better than anything else I’ve done before.” 

Her eyes meet Marion’s for a second of vulnerability, both of them with their guards down, then in an instant, she’s running her hands across Marion’s body, sliding her shirt up, catching Marion by surprise. As soon as it’s over her head, Villanelle grips her by the throat and shoves her against the window. Her head slams back into the glass.

“What do you want?” Villanelle demands, tightening her grip.

Marion chokes but does nothing to counter the attack, a resigned look in her eyes. Villanelle squeezes harder, wanting a reaction out of her but getting nothing more than a huff. She scowls, baring her teeth, bringing her other hand to Marion’s throat and crushing her windpipe making her cough. She struggles to breathe but doesn’t put up a fight, tears forming in her eyes. Villanelle growls and clenches tighter.

She eases up all at once, noticing the scar above Marion’s collarbone and a set of cigarette burns on her chest.

She releases her grip completely, finding two incisions on her abdomen, a long slash coming around her left hip, a raised mark on her right.

She shakes her head, meeting Marion’s gaze with a confused expression.

“Why?” she asks. “How?”

Marion scoffs a laugh. “It does not matter.”

Villanelle creases her brow.

“Anyone who left a mark later ended up dead.” Marion shrugs it off. “Except you.” She laughs lightly. “Maybe.” She gazes at Villanelle, really looking at her, noticing the shades in her eyes, amber grading into honey that turns to green, flecks of gold throughout.

Villanelle drops her hands from Marion’s throat, no longer interested in killing her, curious about her more than anything else. She peers into her, for the first time realizing the variation in the color of her eyes, slivers of copper within the deep brown that lightens as it moves inward towards her pupils, Villanelle seeing herself reflected back in them.

Marion smiles weakly, placing a hand on her cheek.

“Don’t lose her, Oksana.”

Villanelle wavers on her feet. Their energies collide in a new way, a magnetic force pulling them closer together.

Marion turns away sharply, uneasy by the intimacy. She pushes past Villanelle and grabs her shirt from the floor. Villanelle notices a jagged scar beneath her shoulder blade before she gets it on all the way.

She heads for the door, her body quivering, her chest feeling tight.

“Katyra,” Villanelle calls as Marion reaches for the handle.

She stops, turning and meeting eyes with Oksana, giving her a shy smile before opening the door.

“I hope Eve likes the gift,” she says with a smirk then slips out.

Villanelle’s eyes widen. She runs over to her bed, digging around the covers for her phone and immediately calling Eve when she finds it. She paces around waiting for Eve to pick up.

“Please don’t be asleep or into a second bottle,” she mutters to herself.

“Jesus Christ,” Eve answers. “What-“

“Eve!” Villanelle interrupts. “Did anything get delivered to you? At home? Did something come with your name on it?”

“Oh.” Eve chuckles impishly. “Yeah, I’m wearing it right now.“ She lowers the camera to show Villanelle.

“No! Take it off!” Villanelle shouts.

“What?” Eve laughs, confused. “I thought you’d-“

“No! Eve, take it off! Marion sent it! Get it off!”

“What?” Eve’s eyes double in size. “Oh my God! Jesus fuck-”

There’s loud rustling and muffled cursing as Villanelle bites at her nail.

“Jesus, okay it’s off.” Eve scoffs. “I threw it back in the box, I’ll deal with it in the morning.”

“Good.” Villanelle falls onto her bed, smiling when a thought comes to mind. “Are you naked?”

Eve laughs. “I am.”

Villanelle slips her hand beneath her kimono.

“Let me see please.”

\--------

**LONDON**  
The sun is warm on Carolyn’s back as she walks up to the MI6 building, a small grin on her face speculating what the meeting with the new executive director of intelligence operations could be about. Her phone rings in her back pocket interrupting her train of thought.

A +7 country code.

She answers but doesn’t speak.

“The following is a message from the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation,” an automated voice announces in Russian. “The current state of individual 92206 in Kstovo in Nizhny Novgorod Oblast, Russia is worsening. Individual 92206 refuses to complete academic responsibilities, has been involved in verbal altercations with classmates, and regularly engages in reckless behavior. Agent 0427 intercepted individual 92206 out of her home past curfew under the influence of illegal substances on more than one occasion. Agent 0427 reports increased activity of suspicious persons on route between home and school and has been advised to monitor the situation more closely. Additional support is requested.”

Carolyn presses her lips into a thin line.

“The following is a message from the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation,” starts again in English.

Carolyn hangs up and dials a number with a +49 country code, ignoring the group of MI5 officers who smile at her as they walk by.

“ _Quoi?_ ” a woman’s voice answers on the last ring.

“Marion.”

\--------

**BERLIN**  
Eve leans back in the chair in front of the vanity dresser, spinning the black stiletto knife on the polished, wooden surface. Villanelle’s make-up and many bottles of perfume take up the majority of the space.

Chanel, Dior, Saint Laurent, Clé de Peau, Charlotte Tilbury, Versace, Marc Jacobs.

Their bed—behind Eve—remains unmade, clothes balled up in the comforter and thrown carelessly about, shoes kicked off by the closet, kimonos hanging on the bathroom door. 

[If – Unloved]

Eve releases the blade of the knife, mesmerized by the light that glints off it as she twirls it around, taunted by it, allured. She runs her finger down the metal, Saulo’s bloody body flashing behind her eyes as they grow more detached, her mind carrying her back to the moment.

How it felt to stab the knife into his chest. How it felt to rip it out. How much blood there was from the slice in his throat.

How it was warm on her hands.

She exhales a shallow breath, running her finger delicately along the sharp edge, pressing harder as she travels towards the handle, almost enough to cut her skin. Her eyes flick up to the mirror, shocking her like a jolt of electricity.

The lipstick on the vanity beckons to her—Love In An Elevator No 5.

Eve removes the lid, delicately applying it to her top lip in slow even strokes then to her lower, stopping in the middle as if waiting for it to slice her, wanting it to.

Her eyes dance to the open blade, back up to her reflection as she rubs her lips together, the deep red charging her body, prickling her skin. She smacks her lips once, eyes on the blade again, fingers toying with it, wanting to play. She reaches for the bottle of La Villanelle instead and swiftly removes the cap, inhaling the heady scent, closing her eyes and letting it fill her sinuses. Her head falls back as lust seeps into her body awaking every nerve.

A drop of liquid drips down over her collarbone as she dabs the perfume heavily on her neck, blotting more on her wrists, rubbing them together and bringing them to her nose, inhaling the scent deep into her lungs, allowing it to cling to every bit of her, shutting her eyes and reveling in the feeling, letting it consume her. She lets out a warm breath.

Her eyes pop open, pupils wide with arousal, heart thudding harder but steady in her chest. Eve reaches for the wine glass and watches herself swig down the rest of the red wine, leaving faint smudges of lipstick on the rim.

The blade whispers to her, entices her, lures her, ensnares her.

She takes the knife in her hand, twirling it over and over again, holding it in front of her gaze, her reflection dancing off the polished chrome each time she rotates it. The long slender blade drifts closer to her mouth as she wets her lips, transfixed by it, seduced, exhaling warm breaths that stick to the metal. Her heart beats louder as she looks herself in the eye, the edge of the blade hovering just before her mouth. She puckers her lips, closing her eyes when they meet the blade, sighing deeply and melting into the cold steel.

Memories flint behind her eyes.

The ax.

How heavy it was. The sound it made when it sunk into Raymond’s body. The way the vibrations traveled up the handle into her hands. The strength it took to pull it free. His mangled neck after she hacked it.

The look of admiration in Villanelle’s eyes.

Dasha.

The way it felt to tower over her. The cracks of her bones. The sensation of her ribs caving under the force of her own foot. The desire to crush her entirely for Villanelle. The way she wanted to, would have had sirens not interrupted.

Jamie.

The weight of the gun. The sprays of blood when she hit him with it. How her hands trembled but felt strong at the same time. How easy it was to pull the trigger—no second-guessing. How it just felt right, like the only option.

Hugh.

Eve lets out a laugh.

The cigarettes. Watching Villanelle lace them with sarin so meticulously. Feeling powerful with them in her purse. Formidable in the dress Villanelle bought for her. Charged. Watching the life leave Hugh slowly as he choked and struggled. The thrilling rush. The irrepressible desire to find Villanelle.

Goosebumps rise on her skin.

Helen.

The sound of the shots—a simple execution. The way her eyes stared blankly at the ceiling. How her lifeless body slumped in the chair.

Eve opens her eyes slowly, their color close to black, void of any light. The sharp edge of the blade gently grazes down her lips, her hand shaking, her breath getting caught in her throat as she watches her lower lip roll off the blade, an exhilarating force traveling through her veins into every part of her body. It overtakes her, the wave of arousal too much to tolerate, overwhelming her senses. She swallows and lowers the knife to her side, her mind spinning as her brain tries to comprehend, tries to make sense, tries to find logic where there is none. Only impulse.

Desire.

She retracts the blade, slipping the knife securely into her waistband near her hip, feeling powerful with it there, capable of anything but weak at the knees at the same time. She takes her wine glass to the kitchen needing something to lessen the feeling, to stop her body from trembling, to prevent her mind from flying off its axis.

Eve pours herself another glass of wine, swigging down two gulps. She shakes from this new internal sensation, has to lean against the counter for support, getting lost in the sea of night out the windows. The doorknob jiggles behind her then the discernible sound of a key sliding in the lock which she hears but does not attend to.

Villanelle slips through the front door shutting it softly behind her, locking the deadbolt, slinking down the hall into the kitchen, heart beating easier upon seeing Eve. She glides over soundlessly, slipping off her backpack on the way.

Eve’s shoulders drop, sensing her there. Villanelle wraps her arms around Eve’s middle before she can turn around, pressing their bodies together.

They both let out a sigh.

Eve closes her eyes, feeling Villanelle’s warmth, her arms holding her snugly.

“Hi,” Villanelle mutters.

Eve hums, nuzzling into her.

“I brought you home a present,” Villanelle whispers in her ear.

Eve smiles, turning her head towards Villanelle’s voice, feeling more secure with her there. Villanelle brushes her hair away from her neck, placing a gentle kiss on her scar, feeling stirred and settled at the same time.

Eve shivers.

Goosebumps raise for an instant before disappearing.

She abandons the wine glass on the counter and grinds against Villanelle, letting her head fall back, another wave of arousal coursing through her. Villanelle exhales a warm breath on her neck, her muscles tensing and holding their bodies together as Eve slides her hands over hers, their fingers fluttering, both of them melting into the feeling of being together, touching and embracing.

Eve turns in Villanelle’s arms, ignited by the look in her eyes.

“What’d you get me?” she asks, hands gliding under the back of Villanelle’s shirt, feeling her warm skin.

“It can wait.” Villanelle grins to one side, glancing down at Eve’s lips, leaning into her ear, nuzzling her nose into her curls and sniffing the crook of her neck.

Her body shudders.

Her pupils dilate.

She lets out a heavy breath, gripping Eve tighter, hands traveling to her waist, her fingers brushing over the knife, curling around the handle instinctively.

“Eve,” she breathes, slipping the knife free. “Are you afraid of me?” She releases the blade, holding it beneath Eve’s jawbone, the edge pressed gently into her neck.

[Tell Mama – Unloved]

Eve looks her square in the eye, peering through them into her center, sensing the hurt beneath the upset. Her throat bobs as tears come to her eyes.

She swallows.

“No.”

A tear rolls down her cheek.

She places her hand around Villanelle’s throat, Villanelle raising her chin almost to let her, always bemused by this side of Eve. She digs her fingers into Villanelle’s neck, feeling her even pulse under her hot skin.

“Are you afraid of me?” she asks, her tone steely as she squeezes Villanelle’s throat harder.

Villanelle chokes a laugh. “Never,” she labors out with a sneer, glaring at Eve with a blatant disregard, her muscles tensing and twitching before her brow furrows and her eyes water. An uncomfortable hot sticky sensation grows in her chest. She grimaces and tries to huff through it, tears hovering in her eyes, a sliver of fear in them now. 

Eve loosens her grip by a fraction.

“What is going on with you?”

Villanelle’s lips tremble. A tear falls. She lets out a shaky laugh.

“I’m an assassin.”

A forced smile is quickly replaced with a pained scowl.

“You’re an operative,” Eve corrects.

“Like they are so different,” Villanelle retorts, pressing the blade a little deeper. “All anyone ever wants or expects me to do is kill.” She sniffles and lets out a laugh, her breath shaky, her eyes on the brink of deranged.

Eve slides her hand down to her chest, over her collarbones, feeling her pulse on both sides with her thumb and index finger.

Another tear falls down her cheek.

“What is bothering you?” she asks, earnest, unable to figure it out on her own.

Villanelle inhales a sharp breath; her brows go up. She looks down at Eve’s lips as she searches for the answer. It takes its time rising up from deep within, twisting and turning, raking its claws on her insides as it travels to the surface getting caught in her throat.

“Killing.” She forces the word out like a bad taste.

Eve tilts her head at an inquisitive angle, studying Villanelle, analyzing her.

“You wanted this,” she says. “We decided that-“

“No, you decided, Eve,” Villanelle snaps. “I didn’t want to keep doing it.” She huffs. “I don’t want this anymore, I wanted to be done.” Her lip curls.

“Then why did you kill the woman on the street?” Eve questions. “Svenja Mahler.”

Villanelle’s lip and brow twitch at the same time. She presses the blade harder.

“She wasn’t a target,” Eve continues. “Didn’t have any importance to the operation.”

Villanelle scowls, baring her teeth as Eve slides her hand back around her throat, her features becoming harder, more severe, unrelenting in every way.

“We can’t stop until The Twelve are completely gone.”

Villanelle shakes her head, grimacing through frustration, another tear falling.

“No,” she breathes.

“Yes,” Eve states. “They will track us down.”

“No.”

“Come after us.”

“No.”

“ _Keep_ coming after us.”

“No,” Villanelle growls.

“Until we kill the commanders, all of them.”

“No, Eve!”

“Yes.” Eve nods solemnly. “They will kill you,” she says, her voice husky. “And they will kill me.”

Villanelle shakes her head, a lost look on her face.

“As long as they are out there, we are not safe,” Eve states.

Villanelle digs the blade into her throat, another increase in pressure would slice skin.

“The Twelve is all you care about,” she growls.

“Yes!” Eve snaps. “I am trying to keep you safe, keep us safe, alive-“

“You don’t know what it’s like to kill as many people as I have,” Villanelle says, her Russian accent more present. “And to just keep killing, and killing, and killing.” She prowls forward. “You have no idea, Eve. You could never know.”

Eve holds her ground, hand securely around Villanelle’s throat, the blade hovering dangerously close to her artery.

“Why does it matter to you all of a sudden?” she demands.

“All of a sudden?” Villanelle retorts, eyes wide in disbelief. “I told you in London.” Her voice shakes. “I don’t want this, Eve. This is not who I am anymore.”

Eve wrenches her closer by the throat. “I have seen the look on your face when you kill. Seen all the different ways you like to do it.”

“Because I had to, not because I wanted to!” Villanelle’s voice cracks.

Eve scoffs and sneers.

“You made me, Eve.” Villanelle leans closer, lips nearly brushing against Eve’s. “This is what you want me to be. What _you_ want to be.” She presses the blade harder, the edge starting to slice through skin. “You can try to say it was for the sake of the operation or that it was Carolyn’s idea or Adalene’s, but”—she huffs—"this is you. Eve.”

Eve’s eyes blacken.

“Maybe I want to be like this.” She clenches down on Villanelle’s throat making her cough. “Maybe I like it.”

“No,” Villanelle chokes out, digging the knife into Eve’s skin.

“The way it makes me feel.” Eve advances on her. “The way you look at me differently.”

She clamps harder. Villanelle’s face turns red. Her eyes water.

“No, Eve.” She grunts, grimacing at the way Eve leers at her.

“How I-“

Eve gasps, swiftly bringing her fingers to her neck and feeling warm wetness. Villanelle’s eyes widen with panic; she lowers the knife.

“Eve,” she huffs.

Eve feels the shallow cut in her skin, no deeper than a papercut but right over her artery. She scoffs out a laugh almost in disgust, rubbing the blood around on her fingers before shoving Villanelle away roughly and grabbing a kitchen towel, holding it to the cut as she storms down the hall to the bedroom.

“Eve,” Villanelle calls weakly feeling like she might fall over, every muscle weighed down by some force stronger than gravity, dragging her down relentlessly. She growls and heaves the wine glass in a flash, knocking it to the floor and shattering it; wine showers her legs. The stickiness expands in her chest, thrashing about wildly, making her slump over the counter in anguish.

Eve returns wearing a coat with boots in hand.

“Eve?” Villanelle utters, desperation in her voice.

Eve throws the towel in her direction on her way to the front door, brooding in a dark cloud of acrimony.

“What are you doing?” Villanelle frets, trailing after her. “Where are you going?” 

“Out.” Eve jams her feet in her shoes.

“Eve, no.” Villanelle frowns. “Please, don’t.”

Eve turns sharply. “I can’t be here right now, Villanelle.”

She yanks the front door open.

“Eve, wait,” Villanelle calls, her face panicked but her body stuck in place. She clamps her jaw and yells as she shakes, rage beating out all the other sensations. “ _Ya nenavizhu tebya!_ ” she shouts and throws the knife, sticking it into the door as it slams shut.

\-------- [Don’t Fall In Love (Every Single Time) – The Delmonas]

Eve laughs with an older gentleman at the bar, his eyes gleaming at every little thing she does. His blazer is draped on the back of his chair, his tie loosened. The joint is classy yet relaxed, simple yet stylish. The warm light radiating over the counter makes it inescapably intimate.

Eve smiles charmingly, flashing her teeth before finishing her martini.

“Let me buy you another,” the man says with a strong Russian accent though from Belarus—Eve couldn’t help but ask. He nods at the bartender with a grin.

“Oh no, you can’t,” Eve says. “I shouldn’t.” She places her hand on his arm as if that will somehow stop him.

“But you will anyway?” He smiles, bouncing his brow once.

Eve grins, coy, crossing her legs under the bar and aiming her hips towards him.

“One more.”

The man gives her a roguish smile, resting his elbow on the counter and leaning closer.

“What did you do to your cat that made it want to do that?” he inquires, nodding his chin at the cut on Eve’s neck, the skin around it red and raised.

Eve blinks.

“Stepped on its tail.”

“You step on its tail and it jumps up high in the air and scratches you there?” He claws at his own throat for effect.

“Something like that.”

He chuckles. “Cats.” He shakes his head. “They are no good.”

The bartender slides a new dirty martini in front of Eve and a Boulevardier in front of the man.

“ _Danke._ “ He nods then looks back at Eve. “Too skittish, unpredictable,” he says before taking a drink. “Dogs are better. You train them, tell them what to do. A dog—he would never do that.” He points to her neck.

Eve covers it with her hand, running her finger against the cut with enough pressure to send small ripples of pain out into her neck.

“No.” She smiles. “A dog would just rip your throat out.”

The man guffaws. “You are funny.” He nods, grinning. “Funny.”

He narrows his eye at her, the grin lingering on his lips.

Eve takes a long drink, nearly choking on it when her eyes land on Villanelle as she slinks behind the man, taking a seat at the other side of the bar, her face empty with a dead look in her eyes.

The playfulness vanishes from Eve’s face.

She sets her jaw, adrenaline pulsing from her heart, unable to control such a physiological response. She manages to keep her attention on the man, smiling warmly, overplaying it a touch.

“Are you sure I can’t pay you back?” she asks, eyes sparkling, finger tracing the bottom of the martini glass.

“No, no, please.” The man shakes his head. “I don’t come to Berlin enough anymore so it is my pleasure to buy a beautiful woman living here a drink.” He grins. “Or two.”

Eve smiles, more with her eyes as Villanelle shoots daggers at her, the man conveniently unable to see her. She clasps her hands calmly on the counter, leaning forward, her shoulders hunched up to her ears. Darkness emanates from every part of her. So much so that the bartender is afraid to approach her.

A dull but deep pain throbs from Eve’s scar, snaking up into her neck and wrapping around both sides, traveling into her jaw and behind her ears to her temples, constricting itself tight.

The bartender sets a napkin and cocktail menu in front of Villanelle, smiling at her hesitantly.

“ _Guten Abend._ “

“Stolichnaya Elit,” she says before he can start on the evening specials. Her Russian emphasizes the brand name. “Ice only.”

The bartender nods.

Eve can’t contain her intrigue. Her eyes dart over to Villanelle time and time again.

“Something interesting is going on behind me?” the man asks.

“Uh, no,” Eve quickly replies.

He glances over his shoulder anyhow making eye contact with Villanelle who gives him a stone-cold expression, eyes locked on him even as the bartender slides her drink in front of her. He turns back to Eve with a wary frown.

“Do you know that woman?”

“Uh…” Eve brushes her curls behind her ear, grazing her hand down across the cut. “Excuse me.” She stands.

“No, actually, pardon me.” The man stands with a light laugh. “I need to use the gent’s.”

He taps the counter, giving the bartender a look before he walks off towards the bathroom, clearing his throat and adjusting his tie. Villanelle tips back her entire drink, eyes on Eve as the vodka blazes her chest. She stands and drops a 50 note in the glass. A chillingly empty smile spreads across her lips while her eyes darken to a malevolent nature.

The smile falls in an instant.

Eve steadies herself, keeping her thoughts under control, not letting them spiral out in a frenzy as trails Villanelle to the bathrooms, her hands clenched into tight fists at her sides. She hears a thud and scuffling.

Eve hurries over to the men’s room, throwing the door open but finding it empty. She rushes inside the ladies’, finding no one there either. Walking back out the hall, she catches a sliver of light coming in from outside as the backdoor clicks shut.

Her heart drops.

“Fuck.”

Eve glances over her shoulder then runs to the door, opening it to Villanelle bashing the man’s face into the corner of a large dumpster in the alleyway.

“Villanelle!” Her eyes widen. “Stop! What are you doing?!”

Villanelle groans but keeps smashing the man’s forehead into the sharp metal corner, blood covering her hands and splattering onto her face, getting on her clothes and in her hair. Eve grabs her arm but Villanelle shakes free, tears streaming down her cheek. Eve throws an arm around her waist and all but tackles her to the ground, the man’s body falling in an awkward heap beside them.

“What are you doing?” she yells, wrestling with Villanelle on the asphalt.

The man moves his limbs sluggishly, letting out a horrific groan akin to that of a dying animal.

Villanelle cries as she fights against Eve, both of them thrashing and squirming trying to get to their feet first. Villanelle succeeds before Eve and lurches for the man but Eve catches the hem of her shirt and tugs her away, throwing her up against the dumpster.

“I was going to do it,” Eve hisses.

Villanelle’s face twists in confusion and dismay.

“What?” she breathes.

They both snap their heads towards the man as he rolls onto his stomach with another horrendous moan, only two hits to the skull away from being a dead body.

“I was going to kill him,” Eve growls through clamped teeth. “You really think I came here to pick up a man?”

“What?” Villanelle shakes her head. “Eve, no, don’t be like that.” She raises her voice.

“Like what?” Eve cackles. “Like you?”

“Eve.” Villanelle’s brow furrows. Her heart fills with dread. “No. Why? Why do you-“

“Because, Villanelle. It is all I can think about. I need to do it. I _have_ to do it.”

Villanelle shakes her head, these words upsetting her. She places her hand over her abdomen, almost as if protecting her scar.

“No,” she growls. “No, you can’t.”

“Yes, I can!” Eve shouts upwards. She runs her hands over her head. “You showed me, remember?”

Villanelle’s mouth falls open. Her heart plummets. She suddenly feels nauseous, isn’t sure if she can hold it in. Her body shudders.

“Eve,” she huffs with a frown.

Eve growls and lunges for the man, grabbing his head with both hands and smashing his temple into the asphalt.

“Eve!” Villanelle yells but it’s too late, she’s already finished the job.

The man’s face is a contorted bloody mess. His jaw hangs loosely out of position with one eye socket shattered.

Eve shakes her curls out of her face, chest pitching as she stares down at him, her hands sticky with his blood. Thrill washes over her making her eyes flicker and her nerves vibrate, each sense sharpening. She turns to Villanelle expecting to be adorned with an impressed look but instead is met with a blank expression, Villanelle’s eyes vacant as tears stream from them.

Eve creases her brow. “Villanelle?”

Villanelle closes her eyes, shutting it all out, grimacing. She lets out a whimper.

Eve arrives at her side, shaking her head, not understanding, piqued by her response.

“I want to go home.” Villanelle shudders and cries.

“Oh.” Eve stops to think. “Okay.” She nods slowly. “Okay.” She takes Villanelle’s hand, nodding as she rapidly calculates a solution to solve this mess. She swallows. “Um.” She glances over her shoulder at the body on the ground, the situation they’re in just now hitting her.

Villanelle huffs and sniffs, her muscles starting to tremble. Eve looks at her then over at the body. Her, the body, her, the body. She sucks in a breath, arriving at a plan.

“Okay, okay. We need to get his body into the dumpster and then I’ll call Elena—or Jess, and she’ll handle the rest we just have to get him out of here first. Or off the ground at least.” She squats down and grabs the man’s arms, assuming Villanelle will take his legs but she doesn’t move. “Villanelle?” She glares over her shoulder.

Villanelle stands there with her head hanging down, shoulders slumped forward, tears running down her cheeks, eyes squeezed shut.

Eve hurries over, taking her hands.

“Come on,” she urges. “What are-“

“I don’t want to.” Villanelle shakes her head with a miserable groan.

“We have to.”

“No,” Villanelle groans.

“Villanelle, we have to.”

“I don’t want to, Eve. I don’t want to do it. Please, I-”

Eve takes her gently by the face, raising her head so she meets her gaze. The blood on her hands coalesces with the tears on Villanelle’s face, tinting them red as they streak down her jaw.

“Look at me,” Eve mutters.

Villanelle moans.

“Look at me, Villanelle.”

She shakes her head, sniffling.

“Oksana,” Eve tries.

Oksana’s shoulders tense, twitch, shudder. She pries her eyes open.

“Hey.” Eve smiles softly as Oksana’s eyes meet hers. She runs her thumb tenderly down her jaw. “It’s all going to be okay, I promise.” She nods. “We just have to do this and then we can go home. Alright? Just this one last thing.”

Oksana nods feebly.

“Okay.” Eve smiles. “Come on.” She drags Oksana over. “You take his feet, I’ll take his arms,” she instructs, recognizing that his face is the grisliest part. “We’ll hoist him in then shut the lid and it’ll all be over. And we can go home.”

Oksana nods and follows Eve, grabbing the man by the ankles, Eve gripping him under the armpits. She struggles, realizing it’s going to take quite a bit of effort to get him up and over the edge of the dumpster but seeing the way Oksana is lost, drifting to some faraway place, she summons her strength, accessing some deeper part of herself, previously unknown and untapped energy.

“On three, okay?”

Oksana nods.

“One.”

They swing the body to the side.

“Two.”

Another swing.

“Three.”

Eve grunts as she heaves the man’s upper body into the dumpster, Oksana throwing his legs in at the same time. His body topples down into the bin, settling in an odd position, limbs crumpled and bent unnaturally. Eve slams the lid shut, pushing the lock bar over top.

“Okay.” She lets out a heavy sigh. “I’ll call Jess as soon as we get home.” She shakes the blood off her hands. “Come on.”

She takes Oksana’s hand, leading her away from the chaos, blood spattered on the asphalt and dripping down the dumpster along with bits of bone and brain matter. Oksana sniffles, her body shaking like a leaf.

Eve glances over. “Wait.” She comes to an abrupt stop.

Oksana glowers, hardly able to look up from her feet.

“Here.” Eve uses her coat sleeve to wipe the tears from Oksana’s cheek, quickly at first then being more gentle, attentive as she gets closer to her eyes, using the back of her hand to delicately wipe away the blood.

\--------

Steam rises from the water in the clawfoot tub in the master bathroom.

“Almost done,” Eve says.

She dabs Oksana’s face with a wet washcloth, rubbing away the last of the blood, crimson droplets dripping down the white porcelain sink. Oksana nuzzles into her hand with a small grin as she wipes both of her cheeks one final time, smiling lovingly. She tosses the cloth in the sink.

“Get undressed.”

Oksana looks at her shyly, coy, Villanelle coming through.

Eve lets out a laugh and nods, grinning in defeat.

“Raise your arms.”

Villanelle complies. Eve slides her shirt up and over her head, tossing it on the ground. Her brow furrows discovering the incision on Villanelle’s side, four butterfly closures over it.

“How did this happen?” She gently inspects the wound. Villanelle recoils. “Okay, okay.” She backs off. “I won’t touch it.”

Villanelle looks away like she’s ashamed by it.

“It’s okay,” Eve assures her, running her hands down her arms with a smile, squeezing her. “God, you’re so cold.”

Villanelle places her hand on her forearm trying to feel her skin. Her forehead wrinkles as her brain short-circuits, unable to register the temperature of her skin unless her palm is pressed to it.

“Pants,” Eve orders, testing the water with her hand.

Villanelle unbuttons and shimmies out of her trousers, pulling off her socks and standing naked before Eve by the tub.

“In.” Eve nods.

[Cry Baby Cry – Unloved]

Villanelle dips her toes into the tub, the warm water feeling pleasant on her feet which she suddenly realizes are cold too. She steps in one leg at a time then lowers her whole body into the water, stretching out her legs and resting her back against the porcelain. The water burns her cut before it soothes it, melting away all that is left of Villanelle.

One knee cracks as Eve kneels next to the tub, dipping her hand in the water and swirling it around, giving Oksana a comforting smile as she submerges the cup from the kitchen.

“Come closer.”

Oksana scoots up next to her, grinning, eyes soft and submissive as Eve holds a hand to her forehead to protect her face, pouring the water slowly over her head and wetting her hair. Oksana wriggles around from the pleasant sensation, the warm water flowing down her back. Eve dunks the cup and pours another over her the same way, gentle, tender, caressing her cheek when she’s finished.

Oksana hands her the bottle of shampoo, an excited smile on her face, eyes bright. Eve lathers her hands and works the soap evenly through Villanelle’s blonde tresses, washing away any traces of blood. Oksana scrunches up her nose in a happy grin, shimmying her shoulders, welcoming the warm feeling that enwraps her as Eve massagers her scalp.

Bubbles float on the surface as Eve dips her hands in the water. She stares down at her reflection for a brief moment before rippling it away with her fingers, looking through to Oksana’s bare belly. Oksana fills the cup and holds it out for Eve, wanting her to rinse her hair for her, waiting for her to.

Eve breaks into a smile, her heart feeling fuller from the way Oksana looks at her, so expectant, reliant on her for care in this moment.

Once again, Eve protects her eyes as she pours water over her head, rinsing out the shampoo and shaking her hair, having to use three more cups to get it all out. She takes Oksana’s face with both hands, running her thumb across her cheek and losing herself in her timid gaze, seeing her in a new way.

Just Oksana, stripped entirely of Villanelle.

Eve places a kiss on her forehead, resting hers there for a breath.

“Feel better?”

Oksana swallows. Her brow scrunches, eyes shining with unshed tears.

“What?” Eve frowns, stroking her cheek. “What’s wrong?”

Oksana sniffles a few times, her face getting all bunched up as pain torments her, overcomes her. She throws her arms around Eve’s neck, burying herself in her curls, hiding herself there.

“You said you’d never leave me.”

“Oh.” The words hit Eve like a freight train. Her shoulders droop. “I-“

“You promised you wouldn’t walk away.”

“Oh, God I”—Eve wraps her arms around Oksana—“I shouldn’t have left.” She holds her tight, her previous promise echoing in her head.

Oksana shakes as she takes a ragged breath. “But you did.”

“I know.” Eve nods. “I know.”

Oksana clutches her, hanging over the side of the tub.

Eve sighs, her body bending under the weight of her actions.

“Here.” She tries to stand; Oksana holds her tighter. “It’s okay, it’s okay I’m not leaving.”

Oksana reluctantly loosens her hold. Eve slides a hand to her face seeing the pain she caused, the agony.

“Oh, baby.” She frowns, caressing Oksana’s cheek.

At once, she pulls off her shirt, standing and hastily undoing the clasp of her trousers, slipping out of those and her socks. Oksana looks up at her with wide innocent eyes, wrapping her arms around herself.

“Scoot.” Eve nods.

Oksana slides froward and Eve steps into the tub behind her, the water warm on her skin. She lowers herself down, legs on either side of Oksana’s hips.

“Come here.”

Oksana falls back into her chest as Eve wraps her arms around her middle.

“I’m right here,” she whispers, holding Oksana snug.

Oksana sniffles, settling against Eve, taking comfort in being close.

“I’m sorry.” Eve huffs, her voice shaking. “I’m so sorry, Oksana.”

A tear falls down her cheek as she shuts her eyes, her forehead wrinkling as anger directed towards herself gnaws at her. She sniffs and nestles her head against Oksana’s wet hair, inhaling the sweet scent of shampoo.

A scent that is purely her.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispers, knowing this is the appropriate response. “I will _never_ do that again,” she promises, wrapping her arms tighter.

“You can’t,” Oksana mutters, stifling cries. “You can’t leave.”

“I won’t.” Eve groans. The thought of Oksana leaving her torments her mind. “God, I won’t, ever again.”

Oksana swallows down unbearable heartache, Villanelle forcing it away completely. Her eyes drain as she disconnects from herself.

“You can’t leave me, Eve,” Villanelle says, her timbre lower, rougher. “I can’t go through that again.”

Eve sighs, sensing the shift. Dark energy digs its talons into her, clamping down on her shoulders and not letting her go, forcing her to feel it, every last drop.

“I don’t think I can either,” she huffs out.

[Xpectations – Unloved]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dark Eve is spiraling but then again so is everyone else
> 
> The anxiety-inducing kitchen scene came early this time. There may or may not be another one next chapter
> 
> Switching between using “Oksana” and “Villanelle” is tedious and I almost regret doing it but I’ve committed and I want to emphasize that it’s done meaningfully
> 
> A lot of new names I know but if they're dead you don't really need to remember them
> 
> It always a back alley or a bathroom – if anyone has any ideas for places to kill someone in public let me know
> 
> Feedback is always welcome – thank you to my readers who are still on this journey with me!
> 
> Outfits:  
> Eve's [Ted Baker Boots](https://www.tedbaker.com/us/Womens/Shoes/Boots/RAIGN-Leather-biker-boots-Black/p/248481-BLACK)  
> Villanelle's [Saint Laurent Silk Suit](https://www.net-a-porter.com/en-us/shop/product/saint-laurent/satin-trimmed-wool-crepe-jumpsuit/1265052) (but as two separate pieces)  
> Villanelle's [Koi Fish & Cherry Blossom Kimono](https://www.etsy.com/listing/876528805/unisex-crescent-moon-koi-fish-cherry?gpla=1&gao=1&&utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=shopping_us_low-low_c-clothing-unisex_adult_clothing-pajamas_and_robes-robes&utm_custom1=_k_Cj0KCQiAyJOBBhDCARIsAJG2h5e5q4jiVj9CGiONRHHdwugnf_56V9V3lShVe9YfD1zLHRDRTEdimL0aAqFWEALw_wcB_k_&utm_content=go_6721326396_79363459396_388342079432_pla-321776378614_c__876528805_113827384&utm_custom2=6721326396&gclid=Cj0KCQiAyJOBBhDCARIsAJG2h5e5q4jiVj9CGiONRHHdwugnf_56V9V3lShVe9YfD1zLHRDRTEdimL0aAqFWEALw_wcB) (but in teal)  
> Fraco's [Gold Ring](https://www.itshot.com/solid-10k-gold-lion-head-diamond-ring-for-men-03ct-luxurman-pinky-rings)


End file.
